CASE STUDYAlaska & Alaska Highway Business & Travel Guide
YEAR: 2025
INDUSTRY: Travel
LOCATION: Alaska/Canada
SCOPE: Hybrid Business Directory & Travel Guide
PROJECT OVERVIEWThe Alaska & Alaska Highway Business & Travel Guide is an annual publication under Open Road Publishing.
The Alaska & Alaska Highway Business & Travel Guide is an annual winter publication produced by Open Road Publishing LLC and serves as a sister publication to the Open Road Guide. Designed for travelers exploring Alaska and the Alaska Highway during the winter season, the guide features business listings, travel information, maps, and regional resources.
For the 2025 edition, I was responsible for designing the publication's complete interior layout, developing a cohesive editorial system that organized content into a clear, engaging, and easy-to-navigate reading experience.
THE CHALLENGEInterior Layout is Identical to Another Publication
The Alaska & Alaska Highway Business & Travel Guide is a sister publication to the Open Road Guide, released annually for the winter travel season. While the two publications shared a similar purpose, their interior layouts had become nearly identical, making it difficult for each guide to establish its own visual identity.
For the 2025 edition, I was tasked with redesigning the publication's interior from the ground up. The objective was to create a distinct editorial design system that differentiated the Alaska & Alaska Highway Business & Travel Guide from the Open Road Guide while maintaining readability, consistency, and the publication's established brand.
THE APPROACHFollowing the Rough Style Guide
The designer who was in charge of last year’s edition of the Alaska Highway Guide left behind a rough draft of the Alaska Highway Guide Style Guide. I made sure that this edition of the Guide would follow some of the guidelines, while making sure that the whole guide has strong visual hierarchy.
THE RESULTA Publication Different from the Open Road Guide
With the visual separation of the Alaska Highway Guide from the Open Road Guide, advertisers and distributors of the Alaska Highway Guide were able to differentiate the winter guide, despite both Guides being published by Open Road Publishing. This led to current and potential customers the choice to be included in either the Open Road Guide and/or the Alaska Highway Guide, rather than be forced to be in both publications.
