Exposed Grid

University of Utah Health Care's Information Technology Services hadn't updated their strategic plan in a decade. This decision-leading document needed to be progressive, confident and engaging. I felt we should be front-and-center about infrastructure by leaving the booklet's grid exposed on the cover. The spare cover also adds a nice counterpoint to the photography-rich interior. Each spread has a health care photo where technology is integral to medical practice.

The table of contents is also left exposed on the cover. The booklet is split in halves: The Introduction has an orange background; The Plan — a yellow ground with a faux watermark. The photo well and type columns adjusts with each half of the book. All images have a shiny UV gloss. UV also adorns the vertical and horizontal lines on the cover, as well as our title. It's a great finishing effect that helps emit the back-lit technology photos used throughout. Principal photography is by Kevin Lee.

Page numbers are represented in Hoeffler & Frere-Jones' Dividend, from the Numbers family. Numbers has a pixel-like quality in spite of it's low-tech origins (designed after antique perforated check writing machines) that plays well with the display face Headroom, by TypeTrust. Headroom is a mechanical all-caps face that includes a cheeky ink-trap alternate. The booklet's text face is Scala Sans.

To keep costs down, we constrained the booklet to one parent sheet. To keep the book polished, we had it perfect bound. A companion Web site can be found here.

Yellow Study

Who loves yellow? Designers do! Squint if you must, but look at this small book assortment: Modern Typography by Robert Kinross; 79 Short Essays on Design by Michael Beirut; Copywriting by Mark Shaw; FontShop font booklet; AIGA 365 edition 29; Chronicle Books' Stretch Deck; National Geographic magazine; Rite in the Rain all-weather writing paper pocket notebook; Knock Knock pocket notes.

To round out my yellow study, a still life of objects found 'round the house: bed sheets; towels; Kleenex; Sea Salt Neroli Lotion by Caldrea; a project calculator; Klein Tools wire cutter; West Elm scoop-back chair; Verner Panton chair; my Tweety Bird bucket with a sunflower from the yard; and wall paint with the dreadful name: Lovely Lemon Light. Not pictured is my other basement room painted in a yellow called Gabriel's Horn. Apparently paint color copywriters were marketing to old ladies and somehow sucked me into their web. I am not ashamed. I may have cringed at my mother's yellow kitchen growing up, complete with yellow stools and china hutch. But today I'm a proud homeowner, and Mom—I understand.

Oh, and that font: P22 Brass Script Pro.