Started in 2005 as a weekend project with a whopping 125 copies in my living room, I grew the Underground Guide to a 250,000/year print run. Sometimes Art Director and Creative Director, and always helming production, I reinvented the Guide‘s look every year, while preserving its identity.
From 2009’s varied paper stocks to 2012’s drafting-inspired layout, I balanced inventive design with readability. Strategically, the guide was positioned as an insider’s view with an outsider’s flair, with local humor and street credibility, the result of working deeply with local artists and writers. Every edition is infused with cultural homages, like our tribute to the “Godfather of New Mexico Music,” Al Hurricane, and a paper doll thermometer in the form of local, barely-dressed icon, Don Schraeder. I built and maintained a website with all 400+ reviews (which served as our hub to solicit new ones), and organically grew our Facebook brand page to 5000 followers in our first year.
