Ecosystem: Nia Easley, Norman Long, and Nnenna Okore

Threewalls | RaD Lab + Outside the Walls Fellowship Publication
Publication Designer | Visual System Consultant

I designed this publication to accompany Ecosystem, the culminating catalog for the 2018–2019 RaD Lab + Outside the Walls fellows: Nia Easley, Norman Long, and Nnenna Okore. The book showcases each artist’s two-year journey of community-engaged research and public presentation, pairing visual documentation with writer reflections invited by the artists themselves.

In collaboration with Threewalls, I created a design approach grounded in accessibility and clarity. The layout features larger-than-standard body text, ensuring legibility for broader audiences, and emphasizes generous white space to support readability. The publication’s visual language lives within the broader brand system I developed during my time as a design consultant with Threewalls—rooted in geographic mapping, linework as connective tissue, and a color-coded visual structure that corresponds to each artist’s neighborhood-based project site across Chicago.

The cover design highlights this mapping system, visually anchoring the artists’ practices to specific community locations: Albany Park, Avondale, and Jeffery Manor. This grounding in place is echoed throughout the publication, reinforcing the program’s mission to support ALAANA-identified artists (African descent, Latinx, Asian, Arab, and Native American) working toward racial equity through radical imagination and community-driven practices.

Through thoughtful typography and systemic design, this publication honors not just the artists’ work—but the ecosystems they nurtured to bring that work to life.