Graphic Design - Up Into BIG Air

A personal project focused on information design.

"Up Into BIG Air" is an information design love letter to two fascinating worlds of which I have little mastery but plenty of interest: mountaineering and cartography. Skip to the downloads at the bottom.

I was born in the heart of (probably) the world's flattest place: the American Midwest. In my teens and twenties, I traveled to Colorado dozens of times. Most of my Colorado road trips were summer trips focused on hiking and stargazing.

After climbing my first fourteener, a mountain with a summit of 14,000 feet elevation or higher, I was hooked on the mountains. I spent the first summer after that reading and watching everything I could about mountaineering, from nonfiction novels and TV documentaries to action movies. Mountaineering is amazing! So, of course, I had to make something. I always have to make something!

Drawing on OpenTopoMaps (left), Adding Data (center), Digital Layer Affects in Device Mock-ups (right)

"Up Into BIG Air" is a collection of stylized topographical maps of 12 of the world's most famous–or infamous, in the case of the Ana Purna Massif or K2–mountains. These maps are available as 4K digital desktops, mobile wallpapers, and high-quality PDF or PNG files suitable for printing at sizes up to 18 x 24 inches.

This project was created using OpenTopoMaps and a combination of graphic design tools, such as Sketch, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign.