Tenacity, creativity and boss-ass ladies. These are the facets of a coffee-table book written, designed and published by Jessica Leonard- a senior studying Advertising at the University of Oregon SOJC. Changing her major from Business Administration to Journalism: Advertising after her sophomore year of college completely defined her self-acceptance, creative path, and summer of 2018.
Seeking solace from a professor after not finding a summer internship before senior year, Leonard was directed to a creative headspace conscious of everything she was inspired by: doodling in between the lines and incredible women in the creative world. Deb Morrison, an Advertising professor in the SOJC told her to use a personal project like an internship; an outlet to learn everything from Adobe Creative Suite to what propels her passion. So she decided to craft a coffee-table book about the inspiring women she knew in her life, including family members, past teachers, professors, and creative industry leaders.
“I turned a problem into a solution by spending a summer doing what I love: Elevating badass women’s stories in a creative way,” she said. “I illustrated a book about eighteen strong women that have a story to tell, and I dedicated it to my little sister.”
Wide pages filled with illustrations, interviews and inspiration are the foundation for “Project Ladybone: 18 Strong Women with a Badass Backbone.” This title is derived from the common denominator Leonard found in all of the women she looked up to: a backbone that kept them strong, resilient, and fearlessly persistent. Red, purple, and black saturate bold fonts with interview questions like “What’s your creative process?” and “What does success mean to you?” The women respond with eloquent answers encompassing what their ten-year-old-selves would think of them now to what they have planned for the next ten years, and Leonard gracefully portrays them as the diverse, dynamic, and dangerously impressive.
“I wanted to focus on women who are doing their own thing, but for a living,” she said “I just started calling up old girlfriends from high school, moms, and teachers who impacted me. This taught me how to show stories.”
The creative process behind Project Ladybone came from Leonard’s space of little inspirations. Her home in Eugene has walls in the living room, bedroom, and kitchen that are filled with her paintings of women she knows, creates, and illustrates through colorful lines and personality-filled shapes. So using the wall above her desk in her hometown bedroom, or “summer office”, as an enormous mood board helped her stay motivated and clarify the who-what-when-where of her project.
“I would just shut myself in my room and consider that my 9-5 every day. My family knew when my bedroom door was closed, I was on do-not-disturb mode because I was in the creative zone. I failed a lot, but the cool shit I created outweighed that” Leonard recalls.
Leonard’s itch for art direction comes naturally, from childhood days saturated in water colors, paint brushes, and doodling pictures. Yet constructing something with professional intention from the ground up inevitably enhanced her confidence in the field. “I got to get inspired every time I talked to these women, and I could see myself doing these types of passion projects for real, within the industry.”
In a competitive creative world, college students and industry-beginners can feel overwhelmed and underrepresented in their worth. Curating personal passions and bringing them to life in innovative ways was all the practice for the professional world that Leonard needed going into her senior year of college. Learning how to organize, illustrate, and bring her random ideas to fruition propelled her ability to tell stories and self-reflect in a productive way.
“Empowered women empower women, and inspired people inspire people,” says Leonard. She took this sentiment and ran with it, attributing her resilience and patience to the process to “Fuck it, I’m just going to do my own thing.”
