National Geographic
Accordion
Book
Topic: Branding, Book Design
Medium: Adobe Illustrator (8 pages), Matte Paper
Size: 48" x 6" (8 pages of 6" x 6")
The National Geographic Accordion Book is an accordion book spread designed to reflect the image of the selected brand National Geographic.
For this project, I looked into how to visually depict the brand image of National Geographic.
How the brand showcases nature, geography, and science through vivid imageries in magazines and documentaries were the characteristics I focused on.
The ideation process for this book design was a series of research and digital sketches. I worked on making different moodboards and laying out visual concepts.
While initially I ws inclined on simply showcasing nature and culture images, in order to make a more continuous design that fits for the accordion book format, a different design direction was necessary. The use of patterns is what I landed on. Similar to design works, elaborate patterns are utilized in the natural world as well. Combined with the fact that National Geographic is a heavily visual-centered brand, it made sense to go with this idea.
The Design Process
After finding various patterns in nature, I selected three spreads that were red, green, and blue as a representation of the RGB color model of digital images and computer graphics, connecting the theme of National Geographic’s visual-centered magazine and documentary brand identity.
Laying out the natural patterns over these scenes allowed the spreads to have a connective theme altogether. The golden eye of the black panther in the cover is meant to both resonate with the yellow logo of the brand and to serve as a representation on how the visuals we see through National Geographic are out there living in the wild. A subtle reminder of nature to the viewers of this book.