Forbes
Art Direction, Design, Photo Illustration
When Forbes writers Ruth Umoh and Brianne Garrett were planning their 2020 Black History Month celebration of Black Entrepreneurship, they requested I provide a header image for the package. Their only stipulations were that the image include Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, Kanye West, and Robert F. Smith, and that it contain a map of America or American imagery. These photoillustrations were the result of that collaboration, complete with images sourced from Getty and Bloomberg and edited by me in order to present a regal “carved in granite” look.
I used fragments of an old map of the United States, edited to match the red in the page’s color palette to bring some extra color to the image and double-down on the collage aesthetic.
Overall, I’m very happy with the way this image came out, with the highlight of this collaboration definitely being Robert F. Smith sharing a screenshot of the image on his Instagram account, stating that he’s “honored to be among excellence.”