Promoting Diverse Voices in the Arts
The Opportunity: fields was created to provide an outlet for arts criticism where young and aspiring writers could publish their work. It promoted up-and-coming and unsung artists, sharing their stories via profiles and interviews, and helped connect audiences to their local arts communities via coverage and events.
The Outcome: A biannual publication that provided diverse artists the opportunity to share their stories and promoted equality and social justice through the lens of artists’ work.
Launching the Publication
fields was born from a desire to promote Austin artists and provide an outlet for arts writers to publish. It was also created to promote social good. By providing a platform for artists to share the stories behind their work, we hoped to draw attention to important social issues, and we primarily featured diverse artists from marginalized communities.
The first issue was launched in December 2013. It featured work from author Sheila Heti and an interview with author Roxane Gay, as well as fiction, poetry, and visual art from up-and-coming artists from Austin, the US, and around the world.
fields was published twice yearly in a full-color, 150- to 200-page journal. As its popularity grew, distribution expanded from 150 to 1,000 copies carried in major retailers and independent bookstores worldwide.
My Teammates: Ivan Alonso and Janina Hartley (design)
My Role: research, design strategy, content strategy, graphic design, UX design, management, marketing, events
- Created 10 print issues and 1 web issue between 2013 and 2020
- Created print design and promotional materials for print and web
- Created website using UX research and user testing
- Managed staff of 25 editors, writers, readers and designers
- Hosted 4-6 events per year, including with the Texas Book Festival and SXSW
Poet Ji yoon Lee reading at Disparate Elements at grayDUCK Gallery in October 2015.
Growth and Community
In 2016, fields was featured first on BuzzFeed’s list of “29 Amazing Literary Magazines You Need to Be Reading” and was lauded as one of the year’s best literary journals by Entropy Mag.
At its peak, fields featured a staff of 25 writers, readers, and designers, with editors in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and Berlin. I coordinated content strategy with fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual arts editors and worked with two designers to create each print issue and develop the website.
To help connect audiences to artists, we hosted 4-6 events per year, including a quarterly reading series called Disparate Elements, art exhibitions and concerts. We hosted annual events with the Texas Book Festival’s Lit Crawl and hosted an unofficial SXSW showcase in 2017.
Posters created for various fields events.
Building the Website
I worked with two designers to create the website for fields. This took place over the course of two years. We conducted research on how users interact with literary websites and created multiple iterations of user flows until we arrived at our current layout and infrastructure, which was built with a Squarespace template and modified coding.
