Enter the Lo Harris Universe and you’ll find vibrant colors, sparkles of confidence and a rocket of joy. Characters pop with diverse hues, full lips and brows, and dynamic poses. The LH Universe has been visited by clients as vast as Amazon, Hulu and the United Nations and spans TV, T-shirts, and children’s books.
Its creator is Lauren “Lo” Harris, a NYC-based artist, educator and illustrator whose creations and storytelling feel like a party.
“My work is joyful in spite of everything that’s happening,” she said. “It exists with the intention that by seeing my work, someone could possibly gain the confidence to use their voice and stand up in the world and make the world a better place.”
That is what she was trying to do back in the summer of 2020, on the heels of George Floyd’s murder. Harris was an associate animator for NBC News at the time, and she was tasked with creating a graphic using Floyd’s final words. The assignment forced her to listen to his painful cries over and over and over again.
It was then that she decided she could be doing more.
“I felt like I had the ability to create and add something good to the world,” she said, “and I felt like my contributions weren’t necessarily being fully realized in that particular position.”
Looking for an outlet to express herself, Harris turned to Instagram. As a self-taught illustrator, she’d played around with the platform earlier in the year, creating her “29 Queens” series for Black History Month and featuring her own drawings of changemakers like Toni Morrison and Ava DuVernay. This time she created a new picture for her roughly 200 followers to see — a black woman marching, fist raised with the word “Justice” above her. It quickly went viral, and soon she was being commissioned to do artwork on the side.
Hulu asked her to create artwork to help virtually launch the premiere of “The US v Billie Holiday” by Lee Daniels.
American Express tasked her with animating a 3-minute story of Rose Nicaud, a trailblazing black barista in New Orleans, to go along with the company’s video podcast series.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show requested she design the host’s BE KIND by Ellen box.
Soon her side hustle became her main job. Harris left NBC in January 2021 to launch the Lo Harris Universe. It’s seen a meteoric rise since then, with clients ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Old Navy.
Her secret to success, she said, is her approach to storytelling.
In her work, she focuses on telling her story on her own terms. Recently, she shared her story and career at The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, where she was helping support the mission to transform the advertising and creative industries through diversity and inclusion.
As for her personal goal, she set out to share as many business cards with attendees as possible, but there was a catch. Business cards were only given to people she had meaningful conversations with.
“Lo” handed out 80 cards.
In those conversations, those 80 people experienced the same things Harris uses to describe her art: vibrance, confidence and joy.
“They are definitely the main descriptors I would use when it comes to the impact and the essence of what my work represents,” she said,
Her work is bold and definite. It’s energetic. Colorful. Positive.
To tell a bold story within her creations, she ensures her figures take up space and exist at cool angles.
“The emotion really comes out not just in the characters and how they’re posed and how they look to the viewer,” she said, “but also in the literal messaging that I put forward or in the titles of the pieces themselves.”
Harris has some big projects coming up, including illustrating a new children’s book, Mama’s Home, written by Shay Youngblood, and teaching an online course helping artists find their style and use their craft to stand up for things they believe in.
As for herself, she’s going to keep animating, keep helping people tell their stories, and keep having fun.
“There’s a lot of messages around self-realization and finding one’s voice that exists in my work, and will continue to exist in my work,” she said. “There’s always a sense of joy in the work I do.”