For As We Bloom, Mia Bolton’s memoir published in June 2025, I designed the cover and created a series of illustrated maps to accompany her journey across the United States. The book traces Mia’s search for others who are living life differently—a resilient and resonant exploration of freedom, creativity, and meaning.
To capture this layered story, I turned to the visual language of tattoos—marks that act as mementos of who we are, where we’ve been, and what we’ve carried with us. Rather than a conventional map that simply charts geography, I designed a tattooed map: a living surface where symbols and motifs rise up to tell the emotional story atop the physical one. Each illustrative figure is drawn from Mia’s experiences and the people she encountered along the way, becoming part of a visual narrative that’s as much about inner landscapes as it is about highways and borders.
The final illustrations and cover design reflect Mia’s journey not only as a path across the country, but also as an outward expression of the inner markings that define resilience, memory, and connection.
The maps were first sketched in a collage style, layering symbols and references to build a visual language that felt both personal and resonant. I then refined the compositions digitally, laying out the maps in Illustrator and completing the illustrations with hand-drawn elements. The color palette draws from two sources: the vibrant tones that reflect Mia’s optimistic outlook, and the bold, sun-washed hues of West Coast surf culture—a defining influence in her life and identity. Together, these choices shaped a body of work that echo the spirit of her journey.
