I wasn’t in the office when the finished jackets for Patsy arrived. The first time I saw them they were stacked neatly next to my keyboard on top of a few other hot-off-the-press jackets. I immediately inspected every line, felt the paper stock, ran my hands over the surface and exhaled in relief. Then smiled and wrapped every book on my window ledge with them. A wall of Patsy! This one was special for me. I started drawing its roadmap years ago, navigating conversations about race and sexuality, and sketching ideas that would be creatively challenging to myself and potentially for the company. I know I’m not curing cancer behind my iMac over here, but as I held this piece of paper soaked with vivid violet, orange, and red inks, I felt the weight of holding something I knew would be important to so many individuals. A portal to transport them into an imagined world where they would meet people whom they needed to meet. People who would help them find some inner peace and a place to channel their emotions, suppressed and otherwise. A tonic, in some ways, to the insensitive and close-minded chatter that serpentines it’s way through our society. When the design process began, I knew I needed to work from a place of authenticity and acuity for how we currently talk about love and equality. When the process ended however, I wondered, did any of that even matter?