2025 – Book Design – Graduation project for my Master’s degree
“Urban Shores – Towards Landscape-Based Coastal Adaptation” is written by Anna Aslaug Lund, Ole Fryd, and Gertrud Jørgensen. Published by the Danish Architectural Press, the book focuses on how coastal cities can adapt to rising sea levels through landscape-based solutions.
Book design by me as part of my final graduation project from Strategic Design and Entrepreneurship at the Royal Danish Academy, where I investigated sustainable practices in book publishing, from the design phase to production. I led the entire process, from design to production, in close collaboration with author and landscape architect Anna Aslaug and director Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss from the Danish Architectural Press (Arkitektens Forlag). See more here.
More on the overall final graduation project.
Books have long served as a cherished medium of information. However, each step in a book's lifecycle leaves an ecological footprint, from paper and ink to logistics and excess inventory. By examining the broader system behind publishing and production, this project explored sustainability in book design, focusing on how we experience and sustain them, not just as printed materials, but as meaningful and lasting objects.
In collaboration with the Danish Architectural Press, I designed Urban Shores – a book about landscape-based coastal strategies. While the aim was to create a high-quality publication, as the Press is known for, it was also an opportunity to use strategic design to explore how books are made, and where small interventions might reduce their overall environmental impact.
To guide the process, I both used my research findings on sustainability practices and a framework called the Eco-cost/Value Ratio, which I used as a qualitative design lens – evaluating each decision not only in terms of environmental cost but also in terms of the value it could offer to the user. The core insight of this model is that a product becomes more sustainable not only by reducing its environmental impact but also by increasing its perceived value.
Environmental sustainability can’t stand alone. For a book to last, to be read, used, and cherished, it must also be aesthetically sustainable. That means designing in a way that invites care and long-term use. These two dimensions go hand in hand. The more valued the book becomes to its reader, the more likely it is to be kept, shared, and preserved.
One of the most important aspects of the process was the dialogue and strategic mediation between different stakeholders, which involved engaging in conversations with the publisher, printer, and suppliers to both learn from them and apply that knowledge forward. I believe that this ongoing exchange became one of the most valuable outcomes from this project.
