Harpo Productions / Apple Books
My role: Partnered with an awesome copywriter, we collaborated with talent (authors), media partners and stakeholders to build distinct worlds around each OBC selection. Developed graphic packages, social-first content designed to deepen audience engagement, drive awareness, and give each book selection, a unique visual identity beyond the pages. I conducted extensive cultural research to inform creative direction, and cultural references for each release, with final in-house approval in conjunction with authors and publishing houses.
Creative Art Direction / Illustration / Motion Design / Photography Capture / Copywriting
Client: Harpo Productions / Apple Books / Oprah Daily
Date: 2021
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through:
A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry is a landmark 2020 collection edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, LeAnne Howe, and Jennifer Elise Foerster. It features over 160 poets from nearly 100 Indigenous nations. It was important to give the words power by keeping the artwork simple, and incorporating abstract indigenous symbolism, shapes, gradients, and color theory, without the use of cliché visual overtones.
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
A 2021 epic debut novel by American poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Taking place in the fictional town of Chicasetta (or Chickasaw), Georgia. It follows a young Black woman named Ailey Pearl Garfield as she uncovers her complex, multigenerational family history in the American South (beginning in the early 18th century), tracing her ancestors from before the Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement to the present day.
*The art direction is bold, energetic, and has a torn-edged, scrapbook visual language that is meant to symbolize the peeling back of generational trauma and the uncovered layers it leaves behind.
“The Color of Beauty” explores how skin tone and Eurocentric beauty standards have influenced Ailey Pearl Garfield’s understanding of herself and have historically shaped broader perceptions of beauty within the Black community.
