“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.”

John Heywood

In our initial days working on this project earlier this year, we had a diverse team, some great ideas and an ambitious goal. Although each member in the steering committee came from different backgrounds and the path to reach our collective vision wasn’t easy to map out at the time, we were in agreement about one thing – A stunning piece of art can leave an instantaneous and long-lasting impact, but demands time, patience, inspiration and perseverance from the artists behind it before it takes full shape. The end goal of our project – A Travel Guide for Talking Hearts is to enhance the arts engagement across the student communities in all the three U-M campuses and to give arts enthusiasts a creative and expressive medium to come to terms with everything they’ve been through in the “pandemic-stricken era” that has been the past one and a half years.

Fast-forward a few months since then, here we are, finally underway with the launch of A Travel Guide for Talking Hearts. The past few months have put everybody involved in this project through a beautiful journey of self-discovery, creation and collaboration, all in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. While each of us has had to work hard throughout the process to get this far, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed every bit of the experience so far.

Here, one of our student project coordinators – Audrey Banks demonstrates the creation process behind the identity illustrations that she has ideated and designed for #TalkingHearts.

“When I started this project I was not sure what I was going to be able to bring to the table, and here I am – creating the identity illustrations and absolutely loving every part of what I bring to the steering committee.”

Audrey Banks – Student Project Coordinator, A Travel Guide for Talking Hearts

Featured Image Credit: Audrey Banks