Whether as a contributor or reader, InCommon Magazine brings everyone in the agency together. The initiative needed creative talent to help shape engaging content, refresh its visual style, and enhance the overall reader experience. The result—Volume 6—came to life through close collaboration and thoughtful creative direction.

Beyond the well-crafted editorial content that gave the publication its voice, the art direction and conceptual design for the cover and article imagery defined its visual identity. A versatile layout system and refined typesetting, combined with carefully composed imagery using selective royalty-free assets, created a seamless harmony between pictures and words.

Welcome to the relaunch of InCommon, a digital magazine created by and for the Commonwealth community and presented by the DE&I team. In the Language Issue, we celebrate human expression in its many forms and explore all the ways language helps us understand one another. Explore the origins of Metro Detroit street names (and how to pronounce them) and how differences in dialects can get you into some interesting conversations. Discover how words become trends, poetry that conjures memories of distant lands and delicious meals with global flair that are right around the corner.

You’ll also find a thoughtful first-person essay on Colorism and a new video feature that introduces you to some of our colleagues, with a glimpse into things that might not come up in a status meeting. Most of all, we hope you’ll be reminded of the many things we all have InCommon. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard on the InCommon relaunch. Special thanks to the DE&I Committee, Belinda Leworthy and Brinn Phillips for all their support. If you have story ideas or want to be part of the next issue, please send us an email. Enjoy! – Melissa Gessner // Creative Director