Create With Great-itude: Meet Creator, Illustrator and Writer Stephanie Rudig
DC-based illustrator, designer, and artist Stephanie Rudig sits down with A Great Idea team member J to talk queer creativity and the AGI value that inspired their original "Pride In Our Values" artwork
Stephanie Rudig’s illustration of ‘Create with Great-itude’ is part of four-part series commissioned by A Great Idea for Pride 2025. This illustration series, by queer artists from across the US, is a visual representation of AGI’s four core values that guide our year-round commitment to community-centered, mission-led, equity-driven storytelling that is inclusive of all lived experiences and expressions. As a proudly LGBTQ+-owned agency, we wanted to invite visual storytellers to join us as elevate their work and celebrate the power of queer creativity. Learn more about it here.
J: I'm looking at this really cool, embroidered piece you did for "Create with Great-itude", and I'm wondering what your artistic process is like?
Stephanie: For that piece specifically, I was thinking of ways to illustrate the phrase, ‘Create with Great-itude.’ I was thinking of what could—Oh, I'm sorry, but my cat is joining. Oh, that's good! Get out of there! He just always has to be a part of the conversation.
He’s so cute and is super welcome here!
I thought it could be fun to show the idea of creating something handmade. I like to do that—sorry, he’s being so annoying right now—use a lot of hand-drawn illustrations. I also do a lot of crafts myself. In my work, I have liked to build things or make crafts by hand, and then photograph them as the final piece, so I was really excited to get to do that for this particular illustration assignment. I love embroidery. I think it's a lot of fun. I like to do a lot of creative mending. I thought that was a fun way to show the idea of creating something with your hands.
Definitely. I love the textures in it and thinking about printing it, how textures still come through on a flat print and stuff! So when you were going into creating this “Create with Great-itude” piece—and I misspoke earlier, sorry!—what were the things you were thinking of going into the project?
I was thinking of symbols for gratitude. I was thinking of other ways to illustrate that concept besides the classic ‘hands out’ imagery. One thing I thought of was an illustration of the Ace of Cups tarot card—which is a symbol of gratitude or associated with gratitude. I was also thinking about the phrase, “my cup runneth over,” so having this overflowing cup as that idea! Spirals are traditionally a symbol of gratitude, so I did one that incorporated a spiral motif. I did another one that had other symbols of gratitude: various birds that represent that, incorporating the spiral with one of those spiral succulent plants—that kind of thing. Those are the different things that I was thinking about when I was thinking about the prompt.
That's really cool! So I guess, yeah, you sent us multiple concepts and they were all pretty different in my memory. What are your biggest influences and inspirations? And some of these questions are kind of big. So if you need a moment to think about it, that's okay, too. We can!
I'm inspired a lot by a lot of other illustrators. I'm inspired by going and looking at fine art. I spend a lot of time going to museums, and I get a lot of inspiration for compositions and colors specifically from painters. Also, I'm very big on language, so I do a lot of word associations when I'm working on projects—as I just described. I like to pull imagery and pull mood boards, then look at the whole mess of everything I have and pick out the things that are working
Definitely so, thinking about this “Create with Great-itude” embroidery piece, specifically, what sort of decisions were you making? Like, did certain colors mean certain things to you?
No, there was no specific meaning to the colors. It really was just that I wanted there to be a lot of colors. I wanted it to be very vibrant. It is for Pride month, so I wanted there to be a rainbow without it necessarily being an explicit line of rainbow colors. I wanted it to be as colorful and fun and festive as possible.
Very cool! That makes sense—and I think it definitely is. So what brought you to art and illustration professionally, creatively?
The story my mom always tells is that when I was a kid, I was sitting, drawing quietly, would get up every couple of minutes to do a lap around the house, and then go sit back down. She asked, “What are you doing?” And I answered, “Well, I'm drawing a picture of me running, and I need to see how my feet move.” So like a lot of people, I started drawing at a young age and doing any kind of arts and crafts I could get my hands on: papier-mâché and clay, and learning how to use my grandma's sewing machine—that kind of thing. I kind of didn't know that was really a thing you could do as a job. I didn't think that real people could be artists, necessarily. I was very lucky in high school to take art classes with an art teacher who did encourage basically everybody. She'd say, “You should at least just apply to art school if it's at all something that intrigues you.” At her suggestion, I did, and that got me on the path. I didn't really know what illustration or graphic design were. I didn't really understand that concept of making art for things that were just used by regular people, that didn't hang in museums. I guess I had never really thought about it that hard: who made all that stuff. I loved reading children's books with great illustrations, but I guess I never thought, “Oh, that's a thing that you can do!” Then, I learned that was a thing that you could do, and I've made that my career ever since.
Very cool. And so how did you get involved specifically with AGI’s project?
I heard the call from Shane on the Queer Design Club Slack—which is an excellent Slack community, where all kinds of queer people share their work, share job postings, generally just chat and commune. This was such a fun thing to come across on that Listserv!
Sounds really sweet! So moving, I guess more onto you as an artist. What communities do you consider yourself a part of? And how does that influence your work?
I consider myself a part of the queer community. I have a couple of other side projects I work on. Specifically, I have a queer 'zine series that I've done with my college bestie for several years now, and that's a really fun one because we have people submitting writing and illustration who are also queer. Some of them are people that we know, some are people that have come to us from this zine specifically, saying, “Hey, I love it. I want to contribute.” That's been a really, really amazing way to get to connect with other queer creatives. Very fun! I'm also based in Washington, DC, and I am such a big cheerleader for this city and for the arts community. Here I am, both a part of it as a creator and as an arts journalist, so I'm also covering other people in the city or in the larger region who are doing amazing things. Those are probably the two most important creative communities to me.
Okay, cool! And so when you are creating either art or illustrations, design—a combination of all of these things—what are you trying to accomplish? Or share.
Part of the reason why I'm not a fine artist and why I'm a designer and illustrator is because I love prompts, and I love boundaries, and I love a framework to work within. In my freelance career, I do a lot of work with nonprofits. Actually, that is really my favorite work to do: where I can apply my skills to something that is actually going to be useful to people: that will be seen by people: that hopefully helps to clarify some information or tell them about something. I really enjoy making things that are meant to be used and that are in service to other people.
That's very cool! I feel similarly in design. So in today's world as an artist and an illustrator, what challenges are you facing?
The rent is too damn high. They keep on changing the Creative Cloud features. You know? I think it's like a lot of the same problems that have always been in the industry. Also the creeping threat of AI. It breaks my heart a little bit to see AI stuff everywhere, when I know so many people who can do a better job than that.
Totally. I feel like it's good to give a moment for you to have stances on stuff and be like, “think about this!” When you are creating art—and I know you were just talking about enjoying creating art and illustrations from prompts that are in service to be informational and useful and beautiful—how do the things that you create communicate your values?
That's a really good question! For me, that starts at choosing to work with like-minded people. We all have bills to pay, and everybody has a different line for who they are willing to work with, but I do have certain values—that I just absolutely will not compromise on—for who I'm choosing as my clients; that's why I'm mostly working with nonprofits and local small businesses. You'll never catch me doing anything for Amazon, you know? That kind of thing. So for me, I'm just intentionally choosing what I work on. And then whoever I'm working for or whatever the prompt is or whatever the ask is, I'm always asking, “how far can I push the visual boundaries of this? Just how much can we stretch your brand guide? What will you let me get away with? And how fun can it be?”
Yeah, let's queer the brand guide!
Yeah!
Something you were talking about earlier in terms of—and I don't know if for this project specifically you were approaching from a place of symbols—can you tell me about symbols in your work?
Oh, gosh, yeah! I don't always use symbolism, but there are times when it can be a useful thing to include. For this, I thought, “Gratitude is sort of a hard-to-illustrate concept without just showing somebody receiving a gift or that kind of thing. Or again, the hands out.” That's why I decided the symbols might be helpful here.
Okay, I see! Totally. So in terms of this piece, “Create with Great-itude,” what does that mean to you?
It means acknowledging the people who came before you, acknowledging what your sources of your influences are, acknowledging that my ideas do not exist in a vacuum. It's fully coming from other people. You are part of a creative ecosystem, and you are just one piece of it. You should be grateful to the others around you and the others that you work with that uplift you.
So who/what now or has been part of your creative ecosystem?
My queer Zine that I work on, The InQueery, with my college bestie Greg Kozatek—who is, in my opinion, an artistic genius. He is somebody who knows how to get the best work out of people. He knows how to guide people to that perfect end result. They would have done something really good on their own, too. And I'm speaking for myself, as well, because he guides me. He always is able to really identify people's strengths and bring their talents out in the best possible way.
People like that are really important to be friends with! So in terms of, I guess this is sort of a similar question. But how does “Create with Great-itude” and what you just shared as your interpretation of it, show up in your life and the work that you do?
Working as an arts writer, I love nothing more than to cheerlead other people, so that's one way that I do my pay-it-forward. My way of embodying that is I really eschew the spotlight, and I try to shine it on other people instead.
View more of Stephanie Rudig’s work here.
Photo of Stephanie Rudig by Tiffanie Drayton for Capital Pride.
A Great Idea will be sharing the illustrations and behind-the-scenes interviews from each artist across our platforms throughout Pride season. Follow along on Instagram and visit agreatidea.com and check out the full series. Let’s do great things together!
