Graphics can do more than decorate a city. In Supergraphic Landscapes, an architect and a graphic designer show how they can restructure it. The authors, Joseph Altshuler and Nekita Thomas, both teach at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. They build that argument through three strategies — Play-scapes, Care-scapes, and Action-scapes — that grow out of the sports court, the crosswalk, and the memorial. Span designed the book, published by Applied Research and Design in fall 2026.

Span partner Bud Rodecker led the work and treated the cover as a supergraphic in its own right. The title sits inside a field of squares, arcs, and triangles that shifts from fine grain to coarse, and letters break where the shapes cross them. The title is set in Polymath, from OH no Type Company, with its Bauhaus-inspired alternates turned on: a single-story a, a tilted e, a squiggly g. The pattern thins across the spine and settles into a deep blue back cover. French-fold flaps carry the blurbs, and the inside covers are printed.

Inside, each section owns a shape. Play-scapes is square, Care-scapes is round, and Action-scapes is angular. The shapes run through the divider spreads and the tags behind author names.

The cover and duotone sections print in two spot inks. Pantone 648 C is a blue so deep it does the work of black. Pantone 806 C is a fluorescent pink, brighter than any four-color mix can print. Against the dark blue, the pink lifts titles, captions, and selected parts of photographs off the page, the way street paint does on asphalt.

The layout follows the voice. Each of the authors' chapters opens with a memoir told by a place, then turns to the reader, then closes as an essay. Those chapters run in one wide column. Contributor essays, more academic in tone, run in two. Altshuler and Thomas flowed the text into Span's template, and Span detailed every spread before the files went to the printer.

Supergraphic Landscapes launched September 29, 2026, at Baker Space in Champaign. The book argues that a painted line can change how people use a street. Its cover makes the same case on a smaller surface.

“This book is a must for every designer and architect.” 
— Paula Scher, partner at Pentagram, via Applied Research and Design