RONALD FRANTZ
Biographical book layout for legendary Oklahoma-based architect, Ronald Frantz Jr.
Layout Design, Typography, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop
Ronald H. Frantz Jr. is a prolific architect and public servant, volunteering years of his life to the restoration and care of important Oklahoma main street architectural projects. He decided to pursue FAIA Fellowship, AIA's highest membership honor for an architect, recognizing their exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society. This project lasted over a year, amassing a 40-page biographical portfolio book that highlights Ron’s career, combing through and curating countless awards, public speaking opportunities, publications, and showcasing projects that changed the course of history for Oklahoma City, Guthrie, and several more towns located throughout rural Oklahoma.
ABOUT
01 Research
✴
02 Lo-fi Layout
✴
03 Design
✴
04 Refine
✴
05 Finalize
✴
01 Research ✴ 02 Lo-fi Layout ✴ 03 Design ✴ 04 Refine ✴ 05 Finalize ✴
01 RESEARCH
When the client approached me with the ask for a book that will highlight the entire 40+ year career of a prolific architect that could win them the most important award of their career, I was both intimidating and incredibly honored. The project began in August of 2022 and wrapped up in October of 2023. The project involved extensive research, scouring library books for layout inspiration. Despite the client's absence of a specific aesthetic goal, the book needed to accommodate abundant content—both photos and text—and meticulously align with the FAIA Fellowship submission criteria.
Thankfully, attention to detail is my bread and butter.
02 LO-FI LAYOUT
Intense content requires intense layouts. Trial and error was the name of the game for this project, and the seemingly never-ending addition of more content always kept us on our toes. Since the content was ever changing as we were designing, it was paramount that I start with a layout that could easily adapt as we added more text and photos. This book needed to capture four decades worth of career highlights in no more than 40 pages, so my original layout quickly expanded to accommodate more and more content as the project went on.
03 DESIGN
Designing the book came in phases. The first phase was text organization. As more and more text came through, I had to get more and more creative with how the layouts were going to work. The first seemingly impossible hurdle was figuring out how to fit 40 significant architectural works, complete with photos, titles, awards, and text summaries, all on 10 pages. The next design challenge was organizing 30 honors and achievements between two pages, while still preserving a comfortable amount of white space, and allowing for photos. The 3-page Publications section had to accomodate 50+ publication/article titles, as well as details about where they were published and what type of publication they were. Lastly, and perhaps the most challenging part, was the exhibitions section. Nine flagship project were chosen as the nine highlight projects of his entire career. These nine projects all had to fit between 20 pages, and include significant amounts of information, as well as 8+ photos each, including captions for each photo.
The resounding motto of the project was “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.”
04 REFINE
Months of refining preceded the finished product. While I refined the design, Ron, his wife, and the project sponsor all spent hours every week reviewing my designs, making sure every sentence was perfect, every photo was scanned and color-corrected, every quotation mark was pixel-perfect. Personally, I enjoy this part of the process. I love fine tuning and watching a good project become a great one. Each tweak was intentional, every photo mattered, and every design decision had a logical explanation. This book was fit for an architect; built from the ground up and chiseled to perfection.
05 FINALIZE
Submitting the final file for the book was equally the most terrifying and intensely satisfying moment. Fourteen months were spent exchanging emails, editing PDFs, and playing around with the color settings of old, rephotographed film photos. But, after a long and intense process, the book crossed the finish line. A 43+ year career, all condensed into a 40 page book. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the amount of love and care that would go into this project; at first, it seemed like any other freelance project, but quickly became a passion project for me, as well as an obvious cornerstone project for Ron. All four of us were extremely satisfied with the final outcome, and I will forever look back on this project as one of the coolest projects of my early design career.
