University publications are prized among creatives as they showcase the strength of the bond that ties together text, visual, and typographical storytelling. This strength, and the strength of those at the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, was the subject of the school’s annual Emergence Magazine.
Erin Nelson, Creative Lead for the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the time of the award, relayed how detailed and intentional the entire magazine’s theme of strength was woven into the stories.
Could you tell our readers about your career path to where you are now?
My design career has taken me from a university environment to retail and back. I first moved to Ann Arbor for a position as a graphic designer for Borders bookstores, but I am so grateful to have come to the University of Michigan and to be surrounded by people with a shared passion for telling the amazing stories of U-M’s students, alumni, and faculty.
What was your reaction when you learned you won gold in Magazine-Complete Unit?
Total excitement! I’m so proud of the work done on this issue of Emergence magazine and was overjoyed to have it recognized in this way. To be honest, I felt honored simply to have ended up in the company of all of the incredible talent showcased as part of the UCDA Design Awards.
Emergence Magazine 2021
Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan
Award: Gold Award
Category: Magazine: Complete Unit
Competition: Print and Digital
Since you're designing for the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, I can imagine there is an added pressure to illustrate each story effectively. What is your process like for considering how the art and illustration will help tell the stories?
Designing for the School of Art & Design absolutely has its added pressures and challenges. Above all, I want to do justice to the amazing stories of this creative community. As a visual person, seeing an illustration often helps me to put things into context. It can help explain ideas and evoke emotions—this is what I hope to accomplish for our magazine audience when I’m considering the ways illustration and design can help them become more engaged with the stories.
What was your favorite spread (or spreads) to work on, and what fueled your inspiration for them?
The article highlighting artist Ayana Evans’ collaboration with U-M students and faculty was an especially fun, and inspiring, story to work on. It was Evans’ vision, the works of wearable art created by Stamps students, and the performance itself that fueled the inspiration for the opening spread.
In Evans’ words, her work “is a tribute to Black resilience and creativity. It is also an acknowledgment of the anger, beauty, destruction, and rebuilding of our current times —racially, economically, and mentally. Finally, this is a love letter to Black femmes who have set many trends in pop culture and gave us examples of the joy perseverance can bring.”
It was that moment of joy and perseverance that I hoped to convey in the opening spread. I wondered how it might feel to be in that moment… to be in the midst of that performance. How could I show resilience and creativity? It took shape in the morphing of the performer’s costume into a surrounding colorful vortex made from the fabric of the dress and the flowers of the headpiece. I amplified the red and violet tones from the costume into large swirls of saturated color, hoping to create vibration and movement and to translate some of the energy that would have been felt in the moment. In the corner I wanted to only hint at the stage—U-M’s Elbel Field—which becomes fully revealed on the following page.
In researching a font for this story, I was also inspired by vocaltype.co, from which I purchased a license for the typeface used in parts of the headline and pull quotes. From the site manifesto, Vocal Type Co is “a type foundry for creatives of color who feel that they don’t have a say in their industry. This is for creative women who feel that they don’t have a say in their industry. This is for the creative that is tired of being inspired by the same designs over and over again. Vocal is for the creative that cares about telling the stories of the people we serve and not the false history of the industry we work in. Vocal is for the creative that wants to build a community—not a following.”
How did you address challenges in creating this volume of Emergence?
One challenge—which we faced often in our work together—was creating a magazine with such a small team and a small budget. At the time, there were only five of us who made up the Communications and Marketing group. Truly Render was the director of communications and marketing and functioned as editor/writer on this issue. Andre Grewe oversaw bringing the magazine online and making our PDF version accessible in his role as associate director of digital initiatives. Precious Earley brought her social media expertise to promoting the issue and creating excitement around its release. And Nick Beardslee’s photography was an invaluable asset to have in so many issues of Emergence. I relied on each of these colleagues in seeing every aspect of the magazine come to life and am so grateful to have had the support of these collaborative partners in this and in so many projects.
Our small budget meant that we had to carefully choose where to spend it. When the pandemic hit, we had to scale back the number of printed issues we mailed out, but the hybrid print and digital format allowed us to effectively and efficiently reach our audience and reach our goal of connecting with our community.
About how long did it take you to create the magazine?
I carved out about six weeks to focus on the design, layout, and illustration of this 70-page publication. But planning for all aspects of the creation of the magazine helped us stay on schedule while juggling other projects. We started discussing the magazine content line-up in March. In April and May, stories were being finalized and assets were gathered. By June, the copy was sent my way, and I was able to fully dive into the creative process during the summer. August was reserved for routing and review, with files finalized by September for our October publication.
What do you do to keep the creative juices flowing?
I try to open myself to inspiration that might be all around and file away ideas as they come. I try to make time to connect with friends and colleagues and learn what is inspiring them. Taking time to step away—walking the dog, going to a museum—helps when I am blocked. Side projects for family and friends get me into artistic avenues I might not have the chance to visit in my regular course of work. And a good cleaning and de-cluttering of my workspace between projects helps me to start fresh on a new challenge.
What magazines or books do you look to for inspiration?
I find so much inspiration in what my peers at U-M and at colleges and universities across the world are creating. Beyond higher education publications, I enjoy reading Wired, National Geographic, and Popular Science. The Society of Publication Designers’ Cover of the Day is a fun site to visit to get inspiration from magazine and newspaper covers from around the globe. Radim Malinic’s Book of Ideas is next on my reading list of books I’d like to check out.
Is there anything else about the process and direction you'd like to share with our readers?
The theme of this magazine, strength, is reflective of what so many of us went through in 2021. We were humbled by challenges, devastated by tragedy, and perhaps even surprised by what we could overcome. I saw so many examples of communities rising to meet those challenges, and moments of inspiration and determination. Throughout the difficulties, our communities came together and found courage in one another. We emerged stronger.
Credits
Erin Nelson/Art Direction/Design
Truly Render/Editor
University of Michigan's primary campus is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with additional campuses in Dearborn and Flint. It is a public university with more than 62,000 students enrolled in graduate and undergraduate studies at the combined campuses.
Erin Nelson is now the Multimedia Designer for the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Kali Daniel is a part-time senior graphic designer for the University of North Alabama Division of Advancement and the founder of Humble Onion Creative, LLC. When she’s not doom-scrolling Pinterest, Dribbble, or the UCDA Slack channels, you can find her curled up with a book of creative nonfiction or a horror movie. She, her partner, Sam, and their dog, Salazar, live in The Shoals, Alabama.
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