This project started with a question I find myself coming back to often: how do you make someone feel something about nature through a page?
Walking Through the Forest is a conceptual editorial spread for an independent magazine, built entirely from scratch. I wrote the piece, developed the illustrations, and designed the layout; a complete creative process from brief to final spread, owned start to finish.
The illustrations are grounded in observation as much as in imagination, the specific quality of light through a canopy, the texture of bark, the sense of scale you feel standing in old growth all which can evoke a feeling of spirituality, awe, and eeriness. The goal was to complement the writing without illustrating it literally.
The layout is designed to slow the reader down. Generous white space, a deliberate type hierarchy, and the relationship between image and text column are all doing editorial work, all for making the act of reading feel as considered as the content itself.
