With this feature, I wanted to portray the gritty, primeval nature of the Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde with the crisp, almost ethereal photography of the story. With the sharp but distressed line elements and the sans-serif fonts, I lead the reader along a similar trail to the riders in the story in a juxtaposition of the landscape’s timelessness and the riders’ contemporary mountain bikes.

Continuing the juxtaposition of the ancient and modern, I used the distressed vector elements to show that the riders in the story aren’t the main focus, and that the land itself is far more important in the grand scheme of things. The riders are visiting a place that’s been largely unchanged for tens of thousands of years. There may be a path through the ancestral land, but the land is immutable, and the riders are fleeting.

Design elements are nice, but once they’ve been established, some spreads can be primarily supported by photos as readers become engrossed with the narrative. It’s a balance of minimalism and allowing the photography to paint a picture that the story fleshes out.

Every element has a different weight that directs the reader’s eye through a spread. Inset photos that give context or illustrate a specific part of a story draw the eye in, large, more general photos and complex shapes provide structure, and pull quotes capture passive readers who may have flipped to a particular spread and get them to read the whole story.

Any story has a balance of lifestyle shots, landscape shots, artsy shots and action shots to build stoke, provide eye candy, establish the setting and illustrate the characters. The trick is to use each type of photo in conjunction with the others in a way that matches the tone of the story while not overemphasizing particular aspects that are relevant but not as significant to the narrative. When I design features, I like to picture how the story feels as if it’s ending. Sometimes it’s a mountain biker riding off into the sunset. Sometimes it’s the feeling of going home. Sometimes it’s contentedness, an unanswered existential question, or coming to terms with a tragedy. The trick is matching how the reader might be feeling by the end of the words in the story with how the layout and photos will make them feel.

Sometimes, the photography for a piece allows more creative freedom than usual, and short of giving a photographer a shot list before a story comes in, the design is often driven by whatever photos we get. Some photographers make it very easy to get more experimental with layouts by sending very creative angles and compositions, and it allows us as designers to flex our creative muscles to the fullest.

In a magazine that’s so heavily reliant on snow, readers can appreciate the texture of it regardless of whether they’ll ever venture to the site of a story. Showing it in such close detail adds an element of immersion in the same way that the author describes an experience, or a designer creates the vibe of the story visually. Balancing the size of an image with the detail of its content can be just as important as the way what’s in the image is described verbally. As a designer, it’s my job to use the supplied photos to tell all of the thousand words each one of them is worth.

Regardless of the vibrance of the other images on a spread, color hits from design elements, redundant drop caps and backgrounds can create consistency between spreads that keep the reader engaged in a story from start to finish. This is especially important when photos vary in subject matter, age and tone.

With this piece, I wanted to capitalize on the refined nature of cross country skiing, the added complexity of biathlon, and the militaristic nature of the relationship between the US’s War of Terror and the relatively zen sport that is cross country skiing. The typography is influenced by typewritten military documents and the regal, measured title treatments of war movies.

Imagery for Cross Country Skier is often limited because of the rarer photographers who shoot cross country, the often-remote setting, and the knowledge it takes to shoot cross country skiers with good form. Where we often make up for the availability of newer photos is with historical photos, which add much-needed and often-relevant context for the sport. When possible, I like to pair black and white shots with each other for a more consistent palette on a spread, and the story generally supports that structure.

This story’s header element comes from the arrangement of biathlon targets. It’s subtle, but compliments the repeated title without drawing attention away from either it or the other copy on each spread. Reversed headers on sidebars provide an entrypoint for the reader’s eye, and comes from redaction on military documents.

When the story's structure lends itself to symmetry, and opposing photos benefit from the juxtaposition of two facing pages, relative symmetry can be a nice nod to certain aspects of a story. While readers may not immediately recognize the symmetry of a spread, I’m inclined to believe that on a subconscious level, they appreciate the elegance.

This story has several different types of narrative content, from intros to body copy to subheds. Choosing a typeface that would match the pseudo-historical narrative and Jeremy Collins’ illustrations without drawing too much attention from either and allowing intros to scale based on their length took many considerations. In many cases, subtle differences in typefaces can completely change the vibe of a piece.

Continuing the juxtaposition of the ancient and modern, I used the distressed vector elements to show that the riders in the story aren’t the main focus, and that the land itself is far more important in the grand scheme of things. The riders are visiting a place that’s been largely unchanged for tens of thousands of years. There may be a path through the ancestral land, but the land is immutable, and the riders are fleeting.