Full Circle: Jamilla Okubo Returns to Shout Mouse Press
A conversation between Shout Mouse Press & the Internationally Acclaimed Artist
The cover of Bright Before Us, Like a Flame – Shout Mouse Press’s newest anthology – was designed by interdisciplinary artist Jamilla Okubo, whose work has been exhibited internationally at The House of Fine Arts in London, The Southampton Arts Center, and Mehari Sequar Gallery. Okubo has also designed book covers for Moses, Man of the Mountain, by Zora Neale Hurston and An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, among others.
Her cover art for Bright Before Us, Like a Flame, marks a beautiful full-circle moment, because Okubo’s very first book collaboration was with Shout Mouse Press – when she was fresh out of college, and illustrated the children’s book Time for Change. We sat down with Okubo to talk about her journey from first-time book illustrator to internationally acclaimed artist, her design of Bright Before Us, Like a Flame, and the role of art in amplifying youth voices.
In 2016, you illustrated Time for Change with Shout Mouse Press. Where were you in your life as an artist then, and what was that experience like? How did it impact you to illustrate a children’s book for the first time?
In 2016, I had just graduated from Parsons School of Design. My major had been Integrative Design – a self-disciplinary fashion design program with a lot of freedom to shape my major around fashion. But after graduating, I realized that I wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to work directly in fashion.
So I didn't really have a sense of what job I wanted or how to start my own business. I was very unsure of what was going to happen after graduation.
A former teacher of mine from Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Koye Oyedeji, was the one who told me about Shout Mouse Press. He was on the board of Shout Mouse at the time and reached out to tell me about an opportunity to be an illustrator for a children’s book.
I was really excited about the opportunity – but I also saw it as a challenge, because I didn’t have a traditional background as an illustrator. And then once I started working on it, I was really inspired by meeting with the young authors who wrote the book, and moved by how they leaned into learning how to write, and how together they created their own book. It felt like I was a part of something bigger than me, and it made me more inspired to visually express the story they’d written.
Illustrating the book with Shout Mouse was the first big-time commission I had after my graduation from Parsons. And if it wasn’t for that experience, I likely would not have accepted other children’s book requests. Shout Mouse was my testing ground. After I completed the project for Time for Change, I was reflecting on what I could have done better and what I would do differently if I had the chance to illustrate another book. And then I started receiving other book illustration requests – and I realized it was something that I could do, and I had the confidence to do. I have had the honor of illustrating covers for writers whose work I deem really important – and I truly enjoy illustrating book covers as a way to help visually tell the story inside these books.
You have indeed accomplished so much since your first book with Shout Mouse, becoming a wildly successful artist and entrepreneur – and you have taken on some incredibly impressive projects, including illustrating the cover of Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain for Amistad Books. How has your process or approach as an artist evolved over the years?
My practice or approach to illustrating book covers – or just covers in general – has evolved over time, especially because I didn’t have all the tools and skills at first. I had this vision, especially for Time for Change, where I thought: “Oh my God, I know I want my visual aesthetic to be an illustrative silhouette-collage style, but I also want my patterns to be an element that people recognize my style by.” But at the time, I really didn’t know how to properly apply my patterns to different elements in my illustrations.
Over time, I have been able to experiment and explore different methods, and that has really evolved in my work. I think I’ve also learned, depending on the project, how to simplify elements in my work to get the message across. That simplification is something I feel I’ve mastered, especially with a cover like the one I did for Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain.
And over the years I’ve also studied covers – book covers, books themselves, and how people react or relate to a book cover, and what makes them pick up a book. I’ve zoomed in on the visual elements in my covers that stand out and draw people in.
What inspired your design for the cover of Bright Before Us, Like a Flame, both visually and thematically – and how did you apply what you’ve studied about book covers to design this cover?
For Bright Before Us, Like a Flame, I wanted to attract all generations of readers, but specifically young readers. I knew I wanted to make something that was colorful, funky – something that appealed to younger people. I wanted to emphasize youthfulness, and the idea that the youth are the future – and that their future starts now.
It is empowering for young people to be able to tap into their creative energy at a young age. Intellectual power, artistic power, creative power – it's all within them, it just has to be brought out. I was thinking about that when I designed the cover of this book, which aims to bring out that creative power in young people.
And I was thinking about the Langston Hughes poem, “Youth,” which is where the title of the book comes from. I was so inspired by that – and wanted to build on the idea of a flame igniting a young person’s power and creativity. So that’s why there is a young girl writing her story, with a flame behind her. And then, the cover’s background has the quote from Langston Hughes’ poem – which is a nod to his artistry, and his greatness as a writer, and also serves as an example of someone who believed in his ability to tell stories and to create, and to spark change because of the stories he shared.
I hope that when young people pick up this book, it inspires them to add to the world of creators and writers. To believe and to know that their stories are just as important and needed as any story in this world.
Why is the mission of Shout Mouse Press – which as you know is to support diverse young people in telling their own stories, expanding representation in youth literature, and activating youth power through writing – important to you personally?
We live in a world where people come from all backgrounds, where they have different journeys and come from different walks of life. As an artist, I know how important it is to be able to tell your own story, and give your own perspective just from how you’ve lived, and how you’ve existed in the world. And then it’s important for others to know what it’s like to be a person from a different walk of life, and it’s important to expose yourself to different cultures and backgrounds – these practices make the world a better place.
And I believe that it’s important to guide young people in telling their own stories – even if it’s a story they tell to themselves, as an archive of their life.
Knowing that there are organizations like Shout Mouse Press doing this work motivates me to keep telling my story and also to see how people might relate or see themselves in my artistic work. I want my work to inspire people to tell their own stories, too. I think that there is a positive domino effect with creativity.
And if it wasn’t for Shout Mouse, I would not have realized that working on book covers is a great way for me to help people visually tell their stories. I love doing book covers now – it is one of my favorite forms of creating. So I am truly grateful.
Jamila Okubo at a Shout Mouse Press workshop in 2016
What advice would you give young creators?
Explore all the avenues that you can in order to know what you really want to do, and how you want to do things. Exploration is a huge part of figuring out the direction that you’re supposed to go in, or that you want to go in. That’s true whether you want to be an artist or a writer, or you want to be an astronaut.
I think it’s important to dabble before you make your one decision. And practice. Practice is really important.
Finally: reach out to your community. Do your own research, and do it by connecting with people who might be able to help you figure out how to get from point A to point B. There are people out there who may have the answers or the expertise that you need to answer your questions – and the worst that anyone can say to you, if you ask them to talk with you, is ‘no.’ So if you have questions or want to know how someone else got to where they are, ask them for career advice – just go for it.