Rat Guide for the Lonely Traveler
Welcome to the travel guide for the off road adventurer, the anti-tourist; the person who got in the car and simply decided to drive. This project was created my Junior year in Typography class. Focused on the basic fundamental’s of typography and layout design, this project was the culmination of all I had learned in the semester. We were tasked with creating a masthead, cover, table of contents, featured opener, and two spreads of a speculative magazine. The subject and content of the magazine was up to me, so I pulled from a place nestled close to my heart. This edition of the Rat Guide unveils all of the hidden gems that Zion National Park hides from most of it’s visitors, such as Flying Monkey Mesa (Smith Mesa), petroglyphs left from the Indigenous Paiute tribes, and dinosaur footprints on Kolob mountain.
The design of the magazine strays from traditional layout featuring hand done typography and spot illustration laid over photography and set type. I wanted to create a piece that felt personal- as though you picked up a travel guide that a local left behind. Their notes, doodles, and personal comments lead you towards sights you never would have stumbled on solo, creating a travel guide that surpasses reviews and worn down trails. The table of contents is by far my favorite spread. Rather than listing out the stories, I illustrated a map of SR-9. Each story is plotted on the map exactly where you can find the sights in each article; most of which are outside the bounds of the National Park itself and in the surrounding towns and mountains. Each photograph in the magazine is my own and were carefully edited to help bridge the gap between color photo and heavy black illustration and type.
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Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University
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Typography 3001
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Mitch Wiesen