While living thousands of miles away from his native San Antonio, Mystikal began to journal and sketch new hybrid work, allowing poems and illustrations to evolve in conversation with one another.
To see a project which was already three years in the making become fully realized and find its place in the world. Mystikal wanted to blend black and white drawings, colored illustrations, and poems inspired by his real life experience so that they could be fully felt and experienced by his readers.
A reputation as an exceptional visual artist and many unseen poems. He had poems which sung with plenty of alliteration, rhyme, flow, and vivid imagery, but was curious to learn how his work could encourage and inspire people to overcome similar uncertainty.
Mystikal’s project really stood out in terms of how his visual and poetic works operated in conversation with one another, deepening the emotional, spiritual experience and taking us on a multisensorial journey. While we all undergo trials in life, Mystikal is able to harness those core lessons which might be shared and help readers understand they are not alone. His combination of illustration and text meant that these ideas weave themselves around both the heart and the mind at once.
Designing the cover and interior layout for a collection which showcases visual work alongside text was an important step. Mystikal provided inspiring poems spanning love, depression, personal growth and ultimate self-acceptance, but they needed a home worthy of their weight. While he knew he wanted to work with subdued colors and small, classy text, we offered a few options to get that balance right.
In addition to putting together a fantastic book, Mystikal was also the lucky winner of our Barner giveaway collaboration! He got a pair of sweet, protective screen glasses that will help him continue to make incredible art!
We made some real fun marketing images for Mystikal to use in order to promote his book.
In Wanting & Bearing, Mystikal uses both language and visual art to give shape to those things that have shaped him—from his deepest desires to his heaviest heartaches. Designed to dazzle and inspire, Mysikal used his wide array of creative talents to craft t-shirts and other beautiful objects to further celebrate his cover design and artwork.
I will say, the best thing that has come from this so far is all the reactions my book is getting. Everyone who reads it says that it’s helped them feel better. They don’t feel so alone anymore. And that is all I wanted. As long as it’s able to help the people that read it, I couldn’t be happier.