Overview

Reciprocity by Design was written by Vivian Manasc, Safira Lakhani and Tiffany Shaw of Reimagine Architects. It is about the agency of architecture in the space of Indigenous tourism so destinations can thrive while relationships, culture and ecosystems deepen.

I led the creative direction and art direction, shaped the book’s structure, curated its content and created the illustrations that open each chapter. I co-designed the book with Chris Brodt of heyfella.ca, who carried the design system across every spread with real care. We worked alongside a team of architects, writers and illustrators from Reimagine.

Finding clarity

The book brought together many voices and a lot of knowledge that wasn’t ours to interpret. Our first job was to understand what the design should do and what it shouldn’t. One chapter, Crafting Sensory Experience, opens with a simple question: What is felt? That question gave the design its central problem. How does a flat object hold a subject that lives in the body: steam on cedar, heat in a concrete floor, the sound of a fire?

Reframing possibility

A book can’t reproduce a felt experience. It can trigger the memory of one. That shift changed the brief. We stopped trying to show everything and started leaving room for the reader to bring their own experience to the page.

Making meaning visible

We chose paper meant to be held, not just read. The colours came from the land: a deep forest green, a warm uncoated off-white and a rust tone that carries the sensory chapter.

For the chapter openers, I photographed stones and other natural materials, some from the Oldman River, and drew gridded interventions over them: dashed construction lines and marked points. The lines are an admission. A drawing can only trace the edge of a thing, and the designer’s hand stays visible.

That dashed line runs through the whole book, from the arc that holds the title on the cover to the triple slash that marks every chapter and folio. The typography is quiet and open, so the photography and the land lead.

Building momentum

The book became a conversation as well as an object. At an Edmonton Design Week salon, I hosted a table on the sensory chapter, passed a stone around and asked three questions about place, belonging and what designers could leave room for.