Grow Magazine

Grow is a magazine that tells creative stories about synthetic biology, published by Ginkgo Bioworks.

Christina Agapakis and I created Grow in 2019. We wanted to build a space for diverse voices to explore the values and possibilities of designing with nature, while recognizing the importance of art in helping us to ask different questions. In Grow’s first few months I built the magazine entirely from the ground up, bringing it from inception to physical product—everything from designing the first issue and defining the brand, to debuting Grow at conferences and launching our website for online orders.

Now, 4 years later, we have an incredible team that works to publish digitally and in print. As Creative Director, I set the vision for everything visual for the magazine, and have led Grow to win countless prestigious design and illustration awards. In 2022, we were even nominated for Science Breakthrough of the Year from the Falling Walls Foundation. We’ve circulated over 15,000 magazines in homes, bookstores, and schools around the world, and we’re just getting started.

For our fourth print edition, I wanted this issue to reflect our ability to imagine, a vessel for alternative paths forward. The word Futures conveys that there are as many different future visions as people in the world; that if we have the agency, we can change how things turn out. We pulled out all of the stops for this issue, commissioning three photoshoots, adding in a paper change and holographic foil, and exploring a wider range of visuals, including renderings and art generated by AI. The Futures Issue is a whimsical, fantastical, and solarpunk world, brought to life.

Credits | Creative Director: Grace Chuang; Art Directors: Grace Chuang, jazsalyn, Livia Foldes; Design: Livia Foldes; Cover: Harriet Parry;
Book Photography: Letitia Younger

For The Equity Issue, I was inspired to create a magazine that was lush, warm, and intimate, but also bold and vibrant—a hopeful turn in an issue that could be otherwise quite sombering. My art direction team and I commissioned over 30 original illustrations for the creation of the magazine. Equitable design was adamant to our process—13 out of 14 featured illustrators for this issue are people of color. We also made the magazine pay what you can, from $0-50. The cover, created by Ina Jang, represents the duality of “biological equity”: we are parts of a biological whole, but we live in a world with unbalanced, hierarchical, and fragmented ecosystems. The 140-page book is sewn with an exposed spine and comes with a coloring book page and a sticker sheet from Two Photon Art.

Credits | Creative Director: Grace Chuang; Art Directors: Grace Chuang, jazsalyn, Livia Foldes, Alexa Garcia; Design: Chloe Scheffe; Cover: Ina Jang;
Hand Lettering: Tayler Ayers; Book Photography: Emily Simms

The Beauty Issue was created in the heart of the pandemic; an 80-page burst of beauty during a time when so many of us were starved of it. In it we explore biology’s most mysterious trick in all its facets, beauty’s tremendous power over us, and its potential as both a force for good and a tool of oppression. From very beginning, I wanted one thing to be sure: this was not going to be your typical beauty magazine. All of the illustrations celebrate the diversity and abstractness of nature and humans, offering a glimpse into a world of beauty without boundaries.

Credits | Creative/Art Director: Grace Chuang; Design: Stoltze Design; Cover: Lauren Davis; Book Photography: Ally Schmaling

We began talking about a digital platform soon after the success of The Nature Issue. We wanted to publish long-reads monthly, support distribution of our print magazines, and create an online space for conversations as we grew. I spearheaded the vision for our website, working with Image Conscious Studios to build out Grow’s brand and define our mission.

The inaugural edition of The Nature Issue was created in a whirlwind—we had just two months to produce an 80 page magazine before we launched it at SynBioBeta, the industry’s leading conference. We had no brand or logo and no relationships with existing printers or illustrators. In those two months I worked tirelessly to define every aspect of Grow, making decisions about everything from the size of the magazine, to the body font, to the paper type. I art directed and designed the entire magazine, spearheaded the process of going to print, and even gathered volunteers to manually apply a scratch-and-sniff varnish of an extinct flower to a postcard that came with the magazine. We debuted Grow to overwhelming interest and later that month, decided to run a free international giveaway, from which 1000 copies were ordered in less than a day. After that we were pretty convinced that we should continue to do this. And so, Grow was born.

Credits | Creative/Art Director: Grace Chuang; Design: Grace Chuang; Cover: Maggie Chiang; Book Photography: Ally Schmaling