Story

We worked closely with Randal over a few months, gaining perspective on how each portrait came to be, and heard a number of stories from him detailing some incredible encounters with these animals. With the level of power in his portraits, we set out to create a design and layout that would highlight and accentuate the emotional quality of the work.

Featuring over 100 unique animals, the book features a minimal design so as to let the photos speak for themselves. We kept the overall size of the book on the smaller side, to facilitate a close intimate experience with the portraits. Building off of Randal’s intention to bring these animals to life in an almost human way, we labeled each animal by their given name (Hank, Gertrude, Penelope), rather than just by their species.

Inspired by old portrait cards from photography studios, each portrait indicates the name of the animal, plate number, and number of frames taken. The portraits were carefully curated and artfully juxtaposed, creating moments of humor and surprise, and highlighting the emotion in each portrait. In the back, the Index is formatted similar to a yearbook, using the portraits as small headshots. Each one is accompanied by a short testimonial from the photographer about his experience during the shoot.

Watch this video for a behind the scenes look at Randal's encounters

Designed while at Pentagram with DJ Stout
Book photos by Nick Cabrera

Concept Development
Art Direction
Editorial Design
Print Production + Management