habitat:
Hill City, South Dakota & Beyond
Black Hills Institute
Scope:
68-page magazine design
Client
Custer County Chronicle
Speciman No. 03
Fifty years is a lot of story.
Pete Larson, founder of the Black Hills Institute, has spent fifty years digging up dinosaurs — SUE the T. rex among them — and preparing thousands of fossils for museums around the world.
The Institute wanted a magazine to mark that milestone.
There was no shortage of material. History, science, discoveries, photographs, people and stories all had a place in it.
The challenge was figuring out how to make fifty years of science approachable without making it small.
Finding the shape of it
With that much material, the first question wasn't what the magazine should look like. It was how someone would move through it.
The answer became three sections:
The History — where the Institute came from
Behind the Curtain — the work most people never see
The Future — where the science is going next
Once that structure was there, the design had somewhere to go.
built for two readers
Some people would pick up the magazine because they love dinosaurs. Others would read it as scientists, fossil preparators, museum professionals or people who already knew this world well. The design had to work for both.
I wanted the science to remain the science — while giving the casual reader enough room, rhythm and visual interest to stay with it.. No dumbing it down. No turning it into a textbook, either.
Making room for what they knew
The Institute was closely involved throughout the project — and they should have been. This was their history, their science and fifty years of work.
My job wasn't to come in and tell them what their story should be. It was to listen, sort through everything we had, and find the shape of the publication inside it. Their knowledge led the content.
I made room for it to tell the story.