- Katie Belloff
- The daughter of artistic, musical
parents, Katie Belloff, PopSci’s
art director, knew from an early
age that she wanted to embrace
her creative side. (She recalls
marker-ink-stained hands as a
child.) While in college, she fell in
love with publishing, and experi-
mented with screen printing and
letterpress. She used the latter
technique on page 26, employing
wooden type to create distinctive
headline text. Striving for a play-
ful vibe, Belloff led the redesign of
PopSci that debuts with the issue
you’re holding; it has new fonts
and a color palette that will change
with each edition. She describes
the result as “clean and fun.” FR
OMLEFT:^ STAN^HORACZEK;COURTESY^ CONTRIBUTORS^(^3)- Gregory Reid
- When he was 18, Gregory Reid
wanted to be a doctor. But there
was a problem: He didn’t like
blood. After just one year as a
pre-med student, he decided to
turn his photography hobby into
a career, graduating with a BFA
instead. Though he specializes in
shooting colorful still lifes, Reid
left his comfort zone to produce
the photos on page 70 in black-
and-white. His grayscale images
reveal the timeless shapes of
classics such as the Swiss Army
knife and Leica M-series camera.
“The whole world is designed,” he
says. “Some other person did that,
spent hours creating it—I have to
make sure that doesn’t get lost.”
- Brian Barth
- Back when he worked as a
high-end landscape designer,
Brian Barth would often include
fruit and vegetable gardens in
his creations. Barth, who holds a
master’s in urban planning, has al-
ways been fascinated with where
our food comes from; when he
became a journalist, it made sense
to incorporate agriculture into his
beat. On page 82, he explains how
age-old farming techniques that
sequester carbon could help miti-
gate climate change. “I was one of
those people who demonized corn
and soybean farmers,” he says of
a group once known for poor en-
vironmental practices, “but most
just want to do the right thing.”
- Sarah Scoles
- Contributing editor Sarah Scoles
grew up watching launches at the
John F. Kennedy Space Center
from her childhood home , experi-
ences that sparked an obsession
with all things stellar. She holds
an undergraduate degree in astro-
physics, and now reports on the
field for mainstream audiences. In
her second book, They Are Already
Here, out in March 2020, she
explores why the UFO- seeking
community wants to believe in
aliens. On page 62, Scoles—who
writes on a variety of topics for
PopSci—tells the story of amateur
cartographers on a mission to use
up-to-the-minute data to map and
make sense of the world.
BYSANDRA GUTIERREZ6 SPRING 2020 / POPSCI.COM
1234CONTRIBUTORS