Sweet Tree Review
Building the ephemeral, tone-responsive world of a quarterly, online literary magazine through photography.
My Role
Brand Strategy | Visual Identity | Web Design + Development | Template & Asset Library
Software
Figma | Canva | Webflow
Site Link
sweettreereview.com ↗
About the Brand
STR is a quarterly online literary publication centered around the idea of ineffable connectivity. Showcasing works that speak to the messiness and beauty of human experience through bringing to life specific types of emotionally-charged moments like inception or aftermath.
The Challenge
Brought on when the Sweet Tree was merely a seed (an idea, really), I had the privilege of figuring out how to create and implement a visual world that would complement the founders’ vision for the publication and the types of work it would feature.
The top considerations for this world included:
- Finding a method to visually represent both individual and collective works in each issue.
- Creating a distinct emotive synergy between the themes of the written works and visuals, that deepens the readers connection to that emotional space without overwhelming the literary pieces
- Building sustainable cohesion across future issues of the publication that wouldn’t fall prey to repetitious stagnation over time
- Wanting to keep both submissions and readership free and accessible to all, we would be working with a very small, self-funded budget
- Maintaining the tactile, intimate experience of reading through the online experience
Strategy
Identified film photography as the medium that supported the publication’s values (tactility and capturing moments of lived-experience) and needs (batchability, scalability, and cohesion).
Built a framework rules for photoshoots that enabled me to create an interrelated constellation of distinct photographic worlds across issues.
The Solution
- By building rich, textural scenes and sets that can be photographed from multiple angles, we are able to zero in on unique details or perspectives that relate to individual pieces while creating a collective sense of the scene that relates to the themes of the overall issue
- For each issue, the co-editors-in-chief review the accepted body of work to synthesize any recurring throughlines of theme, mood, or motifs, which I translate into visual concepts
- By employing film photography as the medium, we ensure a certain amount of cohesion across issues while also ensuring that
The Results
- 26 issues to-date
- Authors have repeatedly cited that the magazine’s photography was what initially gained their attention and interest in submitting. And over time its reach and the caliber of the authors published has steadily increased.
- The visual appeal of the publication helped build credibility and expanded its reach to publishing authors from around the world, with readership in over 50 countries.
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"Maggie has been the Art Director of Sweet Tree Review for seven years. In her work on six volumes and twenty-five issues of the publication, part of her vision has been integrating household objects into the surrounding landscape of the Pacific Northwest to capture photos that not only compliment each story, but help the reader see remarkably ordinary aspects of our world in a new, unexpected way. The emotional resonance of Maggie’s work is a testament not only to her deep understanding of our mission, but to her strengths as a designer whose work is both timeless and inventive. Additional strengths of Maggie’s include her ability to seamlessly translate design needs, plans, and outcomes into a language that non-designers understand, and fix problems of great urgency with speed and a tremendous sense of calm. Simply put, her luminous body of work has changed our audience’s perception of the natural world."
