In the fall of 2017, one assignments in my Typography 2 class was to design an 80-page book using existing text.

The National Parks are incredibly important to my family—multiple generations have vacationed by taking roadtrips and camping trips to the parks, and we've all grown up backpacking and hiking in them. I wanted to center the beauty and variety of the National Parks in my book.

For the text, we could use anything: recipes, articles, books, stories. I chose the writings of John Muir, a 20th-century naturalist and conservationist. He played a huge role in the creation of the National Parks, after he invited President Teddy Roosevelt to Yosemite Valley for a one-on-one camping trip. It ended up ended up convincing Teddy Roosevelt to create legislation that would later become the National Parks system.

Muir is important to my family because he was truly one with nature, and would spend weeks at a time exploring the woods. As one of the first people to understand the importance of conservation, he also communicated that message to the people in power. As a result, we are all able to enjoy the beautiful National Parks throughout the country, to this day.

I wanted to showcase both Muir's writings and the effect he's had on the future generations. I chose full-scale, color photos of the National Parks, paired with vintage photos of those same parks, from Muir's time, styled as polaroids.

Below is a selection of 10 spreads, from the total 48 spreads. Each spread is made of two pages, 8" by 10" each. After the spreads, I explain my process for designing the book, and discuss what I would do differently.

(If you want to look at all 48 spreads, please contact me. Due to its size, the book isn't fully online right now.)