America’s Marine Sanctuaries

All projects have some restrictions and rather than dwelling on them, I much prefer to see them as defining the challenges that need to be leveraged to create a superior presentation. In the case of “Marine Sanctuaries” it was the source of the images: all had to come exclusively from the holdings of the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation. Since books require a certain level of resolution this added a new level of complexity in which the size an image ran was not determined just by its content, but also its physical resolution. Luckily, I love puzzles and this became a very complex one. But I will also admit that a new tool from Adobe saved my bacon (whatever that means): the new AI-powered re-scaling options mean that an image can be upscaled (typically a serious publishing no-no) with little noticeable loss of quality. The final printing looked amazing!

Client: Smithsonian Enterprises
Role: Art direction and design