To End the Insulin Crisis, We Need to Divest From Diabetes Nonprofits
After sending 20 pitches into a black hole, I called my dad happy sobbing. Our pitch, arguing that the major American diabetes nonprofits are enabling the insulin crisis, had been picked up by The Washington Post. Through the holidays, my friend Robin and I spent hours on calls with advocates, former JDRF staff, and Beyond Type 1 cyclists. We turned 30 pages of notes into 1200 words.
Our piece was set to publish in March – until our editor received an unprecedented barrage of comments from JDRF & the American Diabetes Association which would have required an extensive rework with no guarantee of publication: An incident that itself proves the power and censorship these organizations wield.
Back to the drawing board. Tears, arguments, and high blood sugars. (No wonder so few advocate.) 34 more pitches later, an editor at Jacobin expressed interest.
I messaged diabetes advocate and artist Janina Gaudin across the world in New Zealand to see if she wanted to work together on the illustration for the article. I got a yes within seconds. She may live in a country with universal healthcare, but her advocacy is fueled by knowing the precarity of diabetes.
The thing is, we don’t need these nonprofits to form community because we’ve got it all around us.
Read the Jacobin article here.
Writers: Robin Cressman and Annalisa van den Bergh
Editors: Sophia Nguyen, Meagan Day, and Micah Uetricht
Illustrator: Janina Gaudin
Art Director: Annalisa van den Bergh
Spring 2022
Our piece was set to publish in March – until our editor received an unprecedented barrage of comments from JDRF & the American Diabetes Association which would have required an extensive rework with no guarantee of publication: An incident that itself proves the power and censorship these organizations wield.
Back to the drawing board. Tears, arguments, and high blood sugars. (No wonder so few advocate.) 34 more pitches later, an editor at Jacobin expressed interest.
I messaged diabetes advocate and artist Janina Gaudin across the world in New Zealand to see if she wanted to work together on the illustration for the article. I got a yes within seconds. She may live in a country with universal healthcare, but her advocacy is fueled by knowing the precarity of diabetes.
The thing is, we don’t need these nonprofits to form community because we’ve got it all around us.
Read the Jacobin article here.
Writers: Robin Cressman and Annalisa van den Bergh
Editors: Sophia Nguyen, Meagan Day, and Micah Uetricht
Illustrator: Janina Gaudin
Art Director: Annalisa van den Bergh
Spring 2022
The Ups and Downs of Touring with Type 1
In the middle of our 1,000-mile Alaska bicycle trip, I stop to treat a high blood sugar by injecting myself with insulin, the medication that keeps me alive.
Propped on my handlebar bag is a Clinique bag which used to belong to my mother, who died in 2014 from a rare form of leukemia. I continue her fight with my own fight. I use her flowery pouch to house my own medications that turn food into energy; I call the bag my pancreas.
It's stained with blood on the inside from the everyday reality of living with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Bright on the outside, it has come to represent how invisible this disease is.
Which is why I’m thrilled that along with myself and my bicycle, this flowery pouch has landed on the cover of Adventure Cyclist Magazine. My article tells the story of our bicycle trip around Alaska through the lens of our Dexcom blood sugar graphs and illustrates the ways in which diabetes dictates our days.
Read the article here.
Conceptor and Writer: Annalisa van den Bergh
Photographers: Erik Douds and Annalisa van den Bergh
Layout Designer: Ally Mabry
Editor-in-Chief: Alex Strickland
Spring 2019
Propped on my handlebar bag is a Clinique bag which used to belong to my mother, who died in 2014 from a rare form of leukemia. I continue her fight with my own fight. I use her flowery pouch to house my own medications that turn food into energy; I call the bag my pancreas.
It's stained with blood on the inside from the everyday reality of living with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Bright on the outside, it has come to represent how invisible this disease is.
Which is why I’m thrilled that along with myself and my bicycle, this flowery pouch has landed on the cover of Adventure Cyclist Magazine. My article tells the story of our bicycle trip around Alaska through the lens of our Dexcom blood sugar graphs and illustrates the ways in which diabetes dictates our days.
Read the article here.
Conceptor and Writer: Annalisa van den Bergh
Photographers: Erik Douds and Annalisa van den Bergh
Layout Designer: Ally Mabry
Editor-in-Chief: Alex Strickland
Spring 2019
Raised By Us Donor Deck
Pitch deck designed for Raised By Us, a new organization that helps next-generation employers build meaningful social good programs that drive measurable impact.
Summer 2023
Summer 2023
Miles of Portraits
A magazine and film documenting humanity, one bike ride at a time.
On my 2017 bike trip across America from Yorktown, VA to Seattle, WA, I set out to photograph the people I met along the way. Their portraits and stories illustrate the kindness that exists across America. Since then, with help from my filmmaker friend Erik Douds, I’ve taken the series thousands more miles and am currently working on a feature-length documentary about deaf cyclist Sonny Rasmussen’s race across America.
Watch the short film, Miles of Portraits: Southwest
Watch the short film, Miles of Portraits: India
Watch the online summit, Cycling With
Visit the full website (under construction)
Follow the project on Instagram
On my 2017 bike trip across America from Yorktown, VA to Seattle, WA, I set out to photograph the people I met along the way. Their portraits and stories illustrate the kindness that exists across America. Since then, with help from my filmmaker friend Erik Douds, I’ve taken the series thousands more miles and am currently working on a feature-length documentary about deaf cyclist Sonny Rasmussen’s race across America.
Watch the short film, Miles of Portraits: Southwest
Watch the short film, Miles of Portraits: India
Watch the online summit, Cycling With
Visit the full website (under construction)
Follow the project on Instagram
Plaza+ Communication
Hangtag, poster, and Instagram story concepts promoting Maxi-Cosi's Plaza+ 3-in-1 stroller, designed as part of an application process for Dorel Juvenile.
Fall 2023
Fall 2023
