A behind-the-scenes look at The Equity Issue 🎨

A behind-the-scenes-look into the art direction of The Equity Issue

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Today we wanted to give you a behind the scenes look into the art direction of our latest issue: 14 stories on equity (and the many inequities) in STEM. Keep on reading to learn more, and order your copy now to see it in person.

Creating this year’s issue was truly a labor of love, from visually concepting the magazine, to commissioning illustrations, to designing the magazine, and finally, seeing it in our hands. Our art direction team for this year was led by Grow’s art & creative director Grace Chuang, with guest art directors jazsalyn and Livia Foldes, and support from Grow’s assistant editor Alexa Garcia.

As we began moodboarding, we were inspired to create a magazine that was lush, warm, and intimate, but also bold and vibrant—a hopeful turn in an issue that contained some otherwise quite sobering content. This juxtaposition informed many of our design choices for the rest of the issue, and served as a cornerstone for the visual language of our illustrations and design.

We commissioned over 30 original illustrations for the creation of the magazine. Equitable design was an integral part of our collaborative, creative process. 13 out of 14 featured illustrators for this issue are people of color.

For the design, done by Chloe Scheffe, we were heavily inspired by classicism, riffing on beautiful tropes in old books and scientific journals. Black and cream served as our primary palettes, balanced with spreads that were flooded with color for surprise and delight.

Some of the spreads were annotated with hand lettering, by Tayler Ayers, to contrast the more delicate nature of the magazine.

Custom typography added an organic, biological element to the spreads.

For our cover, photographed by Ina Jang, we were interested in developing an image representing a different, new concept: “biological equity.” On the one hand, biological equity reminds us that we are parts of a biological whole, intertwined and interdependent, connected to nature. At the same time, as we work towards biological equity, we have to confront the fact that we live in a world with unbalanced, fragmented, and hierarchical ecosystems. We wanted the cover to reflect that duality.

Final details: our 140-page publication is coptic bound, which leaves the spine exposed for a unique look. This type of binding takes 3 weeks to complete but is well worth it!

In the issue you’ll also find some additional fun tidbits like a coloring book page, illustrated by Angie Jerez, and a sticker sheet from Two Photon Art with some of their most popular designs.

We hope you enjoy this year’s issue as much as we did creating it. We can’t wait for you to hold it in your hands.

Happy holidays!
- The Grow Team

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