"Conversations" - Fall 2020
Category
Design > Illustrations
Description
Best of CASE District III Award
Institution: North Carolina State University
Title of entry: "Conversations" - Fall 2020
About this entry: The illustrations for "Conversations" -- an edited transcript of a talk with two Black leaders from different generations -- were challenging. The story brought together Eric Moore, NC State's first Black Student Senate president, who graduated in 1970, and Melanie Flowers, the current student body president, who is the first Black female to hold that role. We wanted to be able to show both Moore and Flowers in a portrait-like fashion but with a sense of drama. The technique used is reminiscent of spray paint, which appears in the story when Flowers talks about seeing racist words painted on campus. For Moore, we used an archival shot to show him in shadow as his past self. And on the closing spread, we depicted both leaders at protest marches, in different time periods. For each, we were able to use actual photos of them in those settings as a reference. The result, combined with a simple color palate, is powerful enough to match their words.