HOW Staff

Megan Lane Patrick, Content Director
Megan Lane Patrick joined the HOW magazine team in 1999. As Content Director, she’s responsible for the editorial strategy for HOW magazine and books, as well as the HOW website and events. She’s best known for her ability to find cool things online, which she happily shares as on the HOW blog. Away from the office, she enjoys looking for Mid-Century Modern furniture bargains and collecting tiny chairs, natural history specimens and a certain vintage paint-by-numbers kitten.

Bridgid McCarren, Senior Art Director
In addition to designing HOW magazine, directing photography and illustration and developing the brand across multiple platforms, such as HOW’s websites, competitions and conferences, Bridgid has discovered a love for judging design competitions. She enjoys the opportunity to view global work and spot innovative design among a mass of entries. Bridgid is always on the move, whether traveling, volunteering, playing the occasional prank or exercising her title as the staff running-addict. It’s no wonder that the way type can inspire motion and emotion is a driving force behind her passion for stellar design.

Sarah Morton Whitman, Executive Editor
Sarah has been a part of the HOW team since 1998. Her motto, “Be clean, be prepared,” serves her well as both executive editor of the magazine and a mom. A family gal and bleeding-heart animal lover, she spends lots of time with her husband, two young daughters and rescue dog. At HOW HQ you’ll find her keeping the production process moving, balancing the books and planning lots of things, from competitions and conferences to magazine articles and meetings.

Jessie Kuhn, Senior & Online Editor
Over the course of three years with HOW, Jessie has learned that designers are some of the most interesting, fun-loving and innovative people around. She sees stunning work all day long and is surrounded by creative energy from the readers of HOW that encourages her to pursue her own passions. She’s done this by broadening her once print-driven career into digital journalism as well as keeping her keen skills for sniffing out a story sharp (after all, she is a former reporter). Jessie looks forward to nurturing and growing Designing Change, which highlights designers influencing social change.

Grace Ring, HOW Books Art Director
Grace Ring is the art director for HOW Books. She spends her days e-mailing authors, persuading the sales department to approve cover designs, collecting funny office quotes, enforcing production guidelines, creating ads—and, oh yeah, designing books. Ring holds a degree in graphic design from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, and has worked at design firms in Cincinnati, Miami and Boston. In her spare time, she designs greeting cards, plays cards, and bonds with her Kitchen Aid mixer. www.howdesign.com/books

Amy Schell Owen, HOW Books Managing Editor
Amy has been editing design books for a very long time now. She is question-answerer, schedule-navigator, deadline-enforcer and manuscript-polisher. She finds joy in the collaboration that occurs when an author is passionate about an idea—and when she can help bring that idea to life through words. Amy has been working in the media business since college, where she majored in English and minored in Biology. That dichotomy has been a theme in her life since, as she has appreciation for things both beautiful and practical.