Dad in His Garden

Growing up, I always drew my Dad with two arms, even though I never knew him to have both of his arms. Now, I push myself and my fellow designers to illustrate diverse characters with special care to represent an extremely underrepresented minority, people with disabilities. I started this illustration of my Dad during a creative challenge I led with my team. The challenge was to illustrate someone with a disability, ideally one they hadn’t tried tackling before. I illustrated my Dad in the shirt I designed (he wore it all of the time), in his Velcro tennis shoes and sweatpants that were more adaptive than other clothing, with his cochlear implant and his amputation. Most importantly, I illustrated him exactly as he was, in his garden, in the dirt, among his beloved fruits and vegetables.