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What do you do with so many impressions from a 10-week trip across one of the world’s most vibrant continents? Well, you write a 236-page book and pack it with the best entries from your travel journal. Of course, all those photos you took need a place to shine, too. So you complement the book with illustrated maps and infographics, pay a fortune to have it printed and bound, and then do your best to find a publisher — which might never happen.

A total of five copies were printed in Berlin. We tried promoting it on social channels and presenting it to a few publishing houses at the Frankfurt International Book Fair, but, alas, the book remained unpublished.

The book was written from two different perspectives: mine and Kathleen Gust’s. My impressions were recorded in the moment, taken directly from the travel journal I carried throughout the trip. Kathleen’s impressions, on the other hand, were the result of end-of-day reflections — a summary of everything she had experienced that day. We used typography to differentiate these two distinct writing styles and convey their rhythm within the layout: time-stamped fragments of text contrasted with solid, justified blocks of words.

Kathleen Gust took care of the analog part of the book: layout, typesetting, and film photography. I took care of the digital editing, infographics, illustrations, and the promotional website. Despite the occasional diverging opinions and frustrations, the process was relatively smooth.

The book follows a linear narrative, with each color-coded chapter representing a country we visited, starting in Ecuador and ending in Brazil. Maps highlighting our stops, paired with factual socio-political infographics, introduce the reader to each new country. The website was created to help find a publisher and features an interactive map as well as images from the printed book.

The book features thread stitching and a half-linen binding with letter embossing on the cover. Its 236 inner pages were printed on Metapaper ExtraRough White 120 g paper. The selected typefaces were Botanika Mono and Botanika Standard, both designed by Tomáš Brousil. It was printed with care by Schaare & Schaare GbR in Berlin, and the binding was meticulously executed by Buchbinderei Reinhart & Wasser, also in Berlin.