Map and brochure
Joshua Tree National Park’s map and brochure gets a new look and feel after a redesign of the legendary Unigrid.
What I learned
I found a lot of joy in collectively creating a design system. Each group member had different points of view, which played as a strength in the iterative process of solving the graphic challenges.
Team project with individual deliverable
Hanne Lockertsen
Minsik Nam
Josiah Tersieff
Kerrie Chu
Hellen Tong
5 weeks, December 2022
ArtCenter College of Design
Information design
Graphic design
Design systems
The map/brochure folds into a square that fits in your pocket
The map guides you through the park and provides information along the way.
The most popular part of the park is centred when the map is folded
Process
The first half of the project was a collaboration with the group where we created a design system that acted as a framework for populating maps for different US National Parks. We decided on a square based bitmap layout in which roads, lines, labels and icons would follow.
The individual work was to apply the design system onto a park and create the brochure including the map and some more info about the park — Joshua Tree Park in my case.
The design system consist of color codes for different terrain, symbols indicating type of location, icons and labels.
The design system applied to all five parks
Joshua Tree National Park map design following the system
The brochure follows the square based grid to create a cohesive graphic profile
Before
The old map and brochure has a lot of information spread around and can appear cluttered, and images and text is placed in a way so that it compromises readability.
Front: information about the wildlife
Back: map and some safety information
After
The goal was to render the map in a more minimalistic way, still drawing some inspiration from the original design. The content and body copy is the same in the old and new version.
Back: map and tourist attractions
Front: information and wild life
Final reflections
Working with the team to create a collective system that would work across all our maps demanded a lot of iterations and adjustments. Making decisions without compromising important features was a challenging and fun way to push the design further.
