habitat:
rural south dakota
The redesign started with the cover, throwing out the clutter, retiring the stock photo and letting one real image be the feature. A hands-off client made that kind of full creative control possible from the start. Simplifying the cover did more than fix one page; it set the tone for everything that followed. Every story in Down Country Roads gets its own design, built from scratch rather than dropped into a formula, and that thinking carries through every spread. This gives the magazine a cohesive design.
Down Country Roads
turning templates into customized designs
Editorial & Publication Design
Scope:
Bi-monthly cover + editorial
Client
Custer County Chronicle
Down Country Roads doesn't start with a template ~ it starts with the story, and lets that story lead the design and pacing of every spread. When the Fall River Flight Fest issue promised warmth and light, the design followed: a magenta glow against a night sky, cover to close, carrying the reader straight from "Soak in Summer" into the spread itself. That same principle repeats issue after issue, story after story ~ a cowgirl's own voice shaping her pages, a buffalo rancher's grit and stillness shaping his and a hiking guidebook's adventure energy shaping its own. The design changes. The process behind it never does.
Every story inspires its own design.
Before Re-design
Speciman No. 01
after Re-design
Repeating the process, six times a year
Whether it's a cowgirl's passion for horses, a rancher's quiet herd, or a hiker's trail, the design follows the story every time.
May/June 2026
Sharon Weaver's story of a cowgirl and horses, told entirely in her own voice ~ self-taught, a little sly, never taking herself too seriously ("I'm just an old cowgirl that learned on her own experiences"). The design followed her lead: a warm, sun-worn rust palette, an intimate crop that lets a quiet nose-kiss between woman and horse fill the whole frame, and her own quotes taking center stage on the spread ~ because nothing needed inventing when she'd already said it best herself.
May/June 2025
Chad Kremer's story carries the same intrigue as the animal he's spent thirty years raising ~ a symbol of the Old West, wild and regal, tamed only enough to trust him. Sepia tones and quiet type lets the buffalo dominate the page, while grit came through in the man himself. Rather than pull quotes, lines lifted straight from the story ~ plainspoken, a little sheepish ~ carry the narrative's voice across the spread.
September/October 2024
Marcus Heerdt's story has a different visual language ~ less Western, more expedition. The design pulled directly from the book cover itself, translating FalconGuides' bold, adventure-guide aesthetic into the magazine: strong yellow accent color, a simple bordered frame around the hero shot with condensed all-caps type giving the same confident, photo-first adventure vibe as the guidebook that inspired it.