Northern Light
Design and production for a photography book of night skies: a quiet cloth cover, generous white space and a silver fifth colour.
- Concept project
- 2026
- Print & Editorial
- Book design
The brief
Northern Light collects seven years of night photographs by Elin Brandt for a small Toronto publisher. Dark images are hard to print, and the photographer wanted nothing on the page that competed with them.
Design direction
Most spreads pair one full-bleed photograph with a white page holding a small image and a short caption. A soft italic serif carries the titles; captions are set small in a monospace, like field notes.
Production
Printed in four colours plus a silver Pantone on Munken Pure, with a cloth-bound cover and a tipped-in image. Test proofs were checked under daylight lamps to keep the shadows open.
800 copies
A cloth-bound edition with a silver fifth colour and tipped-in cover image.
Leave the page quiet. The sky is loud enough.
Shae-Lynn McKenzie
Graphic design
