Illustrating The Way Through: Bringing Stories to Life

A few years ago, authors April Jefferson and Mark Kilby approached me about creating visuals for their book, The Way Through: Real Stories of Courage, Connection, and Change From Around The World. At the time, they were still editing the stories that would fill the book today. Now, as the book moves closer to launch, it is exciting to reflect on the process of bringing its stories to life.

April and Mark came to me looking for more than traditional book illustrations. They wanted someone to listen to the stories, understand the ideas connecting them, and capture those ideas through visual scribing.

A visual practitioner listens as people share stories, knowledge, and ideas, then translates the conversation into words, images, symbols, and visual connections. Visual scribing (also known as graphic recording) is typically done live as people talk.

For The Way Through, I used a slightly different approach.

I asked April and Mark to create audios of each story. They took turns narrating, and their audio became the “live” content I worked from. Over many weeks, I listened closely to each collection of stories often more than once as I used a vector-based drawing app to capture the stories graphically.

I did not want to rush the process. I wanted to hear not only what was being said, but also the emotions, relationships, and ideas beneath the words.

Creating a Visual Entryway

The book is organized into six themed “spaces.” April and Mark carefully grouped stories that belonged together. So rather than scribing every story separately, I listened to the stories as one collective space - like strangers gathering to exchange the most vulnerable or aha moments. Each space felt like traveling through a multi-dimensional universe, getting slices of people's experiences and perspectives on what it means to hold space. For the reader, the visual scribings are parts of multiple stories, thus creating a visual representation of the larger theme within the respective space.

These images appear at the opening of each space, giving readers a sense of what they are about to enter. One reviewer described them as a kind of palate cleanser. I love that description because the artwork creates a pause—a moment to transition, become curious, and prepare for what comes next.

Smaller illustrations also appear near the ends of the spaces. For those images, I thought about everyday moments of reflection and care: sitting around a table, drinking tea, being near plants, resting, or simply allowing quiet into the day.

The opening visual scribings invite readers in. The closing illustrations offer a softer place to land.

Butterflies, Bees, and Groundhogs

The book’s opening and closing pages also honor Open Space Technology and the different ways people can show up.

The bee represents movement, conversation, and engagement. It buzzes between spaces, carrying ideas from one place to another.

The butterfly flutters in and out. It may stay briefly before moving on, but its presence can still create an unexpected connection.

The groundhog represents the need to burrow away; or to become quiet, observe, rest, and practice self-care.

This is how I imagine them and the reader may interpret something different.

These creatures are symbols for how readers might experience the book. They can buzz in, flutter through, burrow deeply, step away, or return later. There is no single correct way to move through this book and its many stories.

At Last the Cover

The cover was one of the final images I created. Although I explored ideas earlier, its meaning became clearer only after I had completed the spaces.

I imagined people moving through space and time. They were floating, curving, rising, descending, and traveling in different directions. Their paths were not straight or identical.

That movement reflects the title, The Way Through: Real Stories of Courage, Connection, and Change From Around The World. People are always going through something whether life-changing, small bumps in the road, or uplifting. We are upside, downside, sideways, and across. Sometimes we are on a loop, and sometimes we are stalled.

Creating visual for this book required patience, imagination, and deep listening. The Way Through has been a long labor of love for April and Mark, and it has been an honor to help create the visual world through which their stories and readers can now travel.

Written by Ashanti Gardner, with AI-assisted editing.