editorial
designing for a Pulitzer Prize-winning series
From 2021 to 2024, DJB Design designed the covers for AL.com’s daily digital subscriber product, The Lede, and occasionally, other content that appeared on other platforms under the Alabama Media Group umbrella. One such work was commentator Kyle Whitmire’s series “State of Denial.” The year-long, 7-part series did a deep dive into the systems of white supremacy designed in a post-confederate Alabama that continue to affect the state. I was asked to create a visual identity that could be a throughline for the series.
The challenge: Establish a design style for a year-long series, though most of the installments were yet to be written. The first installment would document the 1901 Alabama Constitutional Convention, when white supremacy was written into state law. The visual design style would appear in The Lede, on AL.com, in Alabama’s print editions, in newsletters and on social media.
The solution: Using archival photos (many from the late 1800s or early 1900s), scans of documents and some stock photography, I created a vintage look so readers could easily identify content associated to the series. An arched “State of Denial” in Amador, a blackletter typeface, adorned each installment.
The result: A design that gave the series a visual throughline for all seven installments of this 7-part commentary series.
On May 8, 2023, the series won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary writing. At the announcement ceremony, the screenshot of Whitmire’s series showed artwork with my byline.
The first installment of Kyle Whitmire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary series, “State of Denial.”
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