Designing a Print Guidebook for a Town That Doesn't Fit in a Brochure

Most visitor guides are directories with a cover. Listings sorted by category, an ad block, a map folded into the back. They answer a question or two and then get left in the hotel room.

The Lenox Chamber of Commerce wanted something people would keep. So we designed the 2026 Lenox Guidebook as a publication rather than a directory. Thirty-three pages and a foldout map, built to be read rather than consulted.

The Opportunity

The Chamber had just adopted a new brand system, and print is where a system either holds or falls apart. A logo can look right in isolation. A guidebook has to carry a voice across dozens of spreads, hundreds of member listings, and six different kinds of content without drifting.

There was a second problem, the one every chamber publication runs into. The book serves two audiences with competing needs. Visitors want a sense of the place. Member businesses want to be found. Most guides solve this by letting the listings win, and the result reads like a phone book with nice photography.

What We Built

We started with the table of contents, because in a publication the architecture is the strategy. Rather than sorting by business category, we organized the book around what a person actually does in Lenox. Eat, Shop, Stay, Play, Learn, See, Discover. Verbs, not directories.

Together, the team created:

• A full editorial structure across thirty-three pages, sequenced to move a reader from arrival into discovery

• A welcome letter and opening spread that establish tone before a single listing appears

• Eight content sections organized by activity rather than business type

• A ten-page Shop section that gives member retailers real presentation instead of a name and a phone number

• A two-sided foldout map, with town orientation on one face and the season's events on the reverse

• Print-ready files delivered through final bleed correction and press handoff

The Outcome

The guidebook reads like a magazine about Lenox that happens to tell you where to park. Member businesses get more than a listing. Visitors get a reason to leave it on the passenger seat for three days instead of the nightstand. And the brand system finally had a stage big enough to show what it could do.

Plus, we built the layout as a reusable structure rather than a one-time design. The 2027 edition starts from a framework that already works, which turns next year's production into an editing job instead of a design project.

Services Print Design • Editorial Design • Information Architecture • Layout and Typesetting • Creative Direction • Brand Application • Prepress and Production