"There's a tension in the design of the book that I was exploring, between making it feel super contemporary and colorful, and leaning into more traditional aesthetics of archives and historical content. I wanted to honor both," says Michele. "Copyright law can also be kind of intimidating, so I wanted to use the design of the book to make the content more approachable and engaging."
"We started by asking everyone to collect images regularly. Just spontaneous snapshots as we went. Of everything. Sketches, screens, notes, half thoughts, moments in motion. Over time it became this huge grab bag of elements," Simon says.
Debbie lived fully, authentically, and with purpose. When she was diagnosed with brain cancer, she adopted the motto "no day but today," inspired by one of her favorite musicals, "Rent." While going through treatment, she wrote, read, traveled, danced, exercised, baked, ate what she wanted, and cherished her time with family and her large circle of friends, all of whom loved her distinctive laugh.
For the hand-painted cover, Murugiah recreated his digital mock up drawings onto heavy stock watercolour paper with red ink. After the ink drawings were done, they were then taped to the drawing board where Murugiah dripped paint and moved the paper around, applying randomised brush strokes onto the paper. The result is a richly textured background wash, made in reaction to the natural dripping of the paint.