Meg Callery : art direction and design

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art direction, design, production supervision

Every spring, I anticipate what I will see, read, and discover in the new crop of teen works submitted to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. As design director, I produce three annual publications—an art book, a writing book, and a yearbook which is an overview of the year’s events and participants. 

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My aim is to showcase and elevate the teens’ art and writing—to treat the work as that of established artists and writers. The publication covers (2019–2023) shown on the left are examples of some of the bold, sophisticated work created by these young artists. 

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Over the years, we have changed formats and titles for the books. In 2023, we aligned the publications to meet with AAM Accessible Communication Guidelines and scaled up the art and writing books to 8-1/2 × 11”. We increased the text and image sizes to improve legibility. These changes allowed for ease of handling, and overall accessibility.

National Student Poets Program

Art direction, production supervision

The Scholastic Awards present the National Student Poets Program, a prestigious award for teen poets who create original work. Five teens are selected as youth poetry ambassadors—each representing their geographic region of the country. During their one-year term of service, they develop and lead poetry projects for a range of audiences in underserved communities.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art direction, design, production supervision

In 2015 we chose to highlight visual themes that emerged from the collective work. The common themes were fantasy, psychedelic imagery, and unique interpretations of identity.

Because the visual impact of the catalog cover art was so strong, it was carried over to the next year’s call for entries poster. A tote bag was also produced and proved to be popular with teens.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art direction, design, production supervision

The cover image for the National Catalog reads honest and true to the teenage experience. The girl’s expression appears dreamy and distant. There ‘s a look of composure, and a hint of annoyance.

In partnership with Colossal Media, the cover image was reproduced on a building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was also carried over to promote the program in the New York Times ad.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Design, production supervision

Each year the Awards honors an alumnus of the program. In 2024 José Parlá, an artist who creates large-scale paintings and murals, was celebrated. For the invitation (top), instead of using an example of his work, I opted to show a photo of the artist in the act of painting. It was intended as a small surprise for when the invitation is turned over, his figure is revealed. The idea of process was further reinforced by the image of his studio shown on the accompanying notecard.

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In 2025, the honored alum was Audrey Niffenegger, a visual artist, writer, and author of “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. The student works presented on the invitation pieces were selected based on my interpretation of the aesthetic demonstrated in her art practice.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art direction, production

The New York Times, a sponsor of the Awards, donates a full-page ad twice a year to the organization. Image selection is usually based on expression of teen identities. For a recent ad (top, right) I opted for an intricately detailed pen and ink drawing of a cityscape viewed from above. When it was published, the selection surprised me by the strength in which it draws in the eye, and how well it reproduced.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art direction, design, production supervision

Each year the stories and art of our recent alumni were celebrated through the annual benefit, Art & Writing @ Night.

The alumni work was varied so the challenge was to combine unrelated artwork resulting in a cohesive visual piece. The midnight blue color blocks frame and unify the individual works without neutralizing them. The color choice also refers to the name of the event.

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For the invitation from the prior year, three-dimensional works of three recent award-winning students were showcased. The works were notable because of their unconventional use of materials—matches and pencil shavings.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Art direction, design, production supervision

To commemorate 100 years of the Scholastic Awards, two book were published. 

“A Thousand Familiar Faces” is a remarkable selection of teen writing from the Awards’ inception in 1923. The writings focus on the teen experience and are organized by themes—body, teenage life, family, nature, and grief. The amazing thing is works from long ago still ring true and are as fresh as if they were written today.

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“The Great Encouragement” recounts the history of the Awards. The title refers to a quote by the founder Maurice Robinson, the founder of Scholastic Inc and the Awards. His intention was to create an award competition to promote teen creativity and encourage free thought and self-expression.

Parsons School of Design and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

Art direction, design, production supervision

Medallion
This is one of my favorite projects. The suite of materials consisted of a poster, accordion-fold invitation, postcard, and a program that promoted an international design history symposium. The centerpiece on the poster is a “medallion” created from cropped features of objects in the museum’s collection. Small numbers on the fragments correspond to photographs of the objects at the bottom. The concept refers to the details historians use to identify and date objects.

The design suite won a Print Magazine Regional Design Award, and is part of the museum’s permanent collection.

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Swatch Book
The following year, historic textile and wallpaper designs were selected as the images for a symposium invitation. The invitation was composed of a series of nested cards cut to different widths to reveal the cards’ right edges and create a swatch book.

Parsons School of Design

Art direction, design, production, production supervision

Parsons’ New York City location drove the design of this suite of catalogs. Photographs of New York City icons (taxi cabs, subway cars) were shot to enhance motion and kinetic movement. The bright, clean color palette gave visual presence as well as consistency from one cover to another. The theme was “the city as a campus”.

This was the first comprehensive publication campaign I worked on. The Undergraduate, Graduate, and Associate degree program covers were rolled out over one recruitment season. The interior page layouts used Helvetica (the main font of the NYC transit system). Page sidebars were set up using solid circles and bars (also referring to the transit system’s graphic identity) to define the books’ sections.

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Defining elements for Parsons’ Graduate programs promotion pieces employed the same color palette and utilized oversized, cropped letterforms, and bold, cropped images.

Parsons School of Design

Art direction, production supervision, key liaison with illustrators

The issue focused on illustration—more specifically, illustration in the age of anxiety. I built a team of illustrators from alumni, faculty, and current students. I art directed the work on the front, back, inside covers, and contributors page. For the feature article about high profile, culture-defining illustrators, I chose to present their work in a fairly straightforward way but framed the pieces in “anxiety scribbles”.

Flourish Baking Company

Design, art direction, production supervision

In collaboration with the owner and business manager, I built the brand identity for Flourish Baking Company from scratch—taking the business from a fledgling startup to a prosperous company over the course of eighteen month. I art directed the photography for the website and worked directly with the web developer.