habitat:
Hill City, South Dakota & Beyond
Black Hills Institute
Scope:
68-page magazine design
Client
Custer County Chronicle
Speciman No. 03
The first big "YES"
The Chronicle brought me in to design this 68-page commemorative publication celebrating 50 years of Black Hills Institute.
As the project developed, the Chronicle turned the design and client relationship over to me, allowing me to work directly with the Institute from concept through completion.
Pete Larsen, 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 worldwide. The Institute wanted a magazine celebrating that milestone. The challenge wasn't just design. It was translation: making fifty years of science readable without making it small.
Built for two readers
The magazine runs on three sections ~ History, Behind the Curtain, The Future ~ built to hold two audiences at once. Historical dig photography and founder Pete Larson's own words carry the story for casual readers. Infographic-style process breakdowns, grain-by-grain fossil prep, a muscle-by-muscle reconstruction of DUFFY the T-rex, hold the detail scientists and museum professionals expect.
A closely-involved client
This one wasn't hands-off. The Institute stayed closely involved at every stage `~ their history, their standards, their vision for how fifty years should be told. The work was making room for that involvement while still finding the shape of a magazine underneath it.
The result
A 68-page commemorative magazine that balances storytelling, editorial design, and complex scientific information for both enthusiasts and professionals.