Making History Come Alive

Hello Friends,

Often when we think about history, we see it as dry. Is history just one fact after the other? The truth is history is colorful, suspenseful, intriguing, and unbelievable! It is a field composed of stories sewn together to show us trends and illuminate the triumphs and the troubles of the world. When I imagined what my cover and website would look like, I knew I did not want it to be drab. My sole goal in life is to make history come alive and express to my students the United States is a mosaic of different cultures. When I met graphic designer, Kelly Mattimoe I knew she would make my scholarship pop. Her artistic eye sparked to life my vision for history. She masterfully used her color palette to show my passion for social change and multiculturalism. Her use of shapes, vibrant colors, and evocative images are an inspiration to the power art can have on a field like history. Mattimoe demonstrates through her work, as Wassily Kandinsky expressed, “Color is a power which directly influences the soul.” I want to press upon and encourage teachers and professors not to make history vanilla but flavorful. If you find inspiration in Mattimoe’s work, like me, you can find her work and website below: