GreenInfo Network

The USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) maintains the inventory of protected lands in the U.S. and was asked by a federal interagency team to develop a poster for the 50th anniversary of the national Wilderness system.  GreenInfo works closely with GAP on many projects and GAP in turn invited us to help create this product.

The two-sided poster has three elements - an overall design approach, a map side showing all U.S. wilderness areas and an infographic side showing several aspects of the wilderness system.  We developed an overall visual style with our frequent partner, Ison Design, using the existing 50th anniversary logo and a prior poster style we had developed for GAP's use. For the infographic, we worked with the 50th team to develop purposes and content/placement, and with Ison Design to create specific graphics and text treatment. Included in the infographic are a 50 year timeline of key wilderness events, introductory text, a diagram of the wilderness process, and a series of illustrations first developed by GAP showing wilderness in relation to cities.

The map on the front of the poster used wilderness area data from Wilderness.net as the core information, and GreenInfo developed cartography to place this data into an effective geographic context. Placing hundreds of labels and getting other features to present the right "story" took many hours, aided by careful editing and review from USGS staff.

The final poster was produced in an offset print run of 40,000 copies.  Information on ordering them map and much else about the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act is available at the Wilderness 50th Anniversary web site - go to the Toolbox section and choose "maps" in the left hand menu, then select the "Front" or "Back" sides of the poster to download (each are 16mb PDFs).