Following the completion of their 2026 Community Guide, the City of Trail, B.C. came back to commission a billboard as part of the broader 125th anniversary campaign. The brief was straightforward: a 10' x 20' billboard that would build on the photo collage I had already developed for the guide's inside front cover, adapting it for large-format outdoor use.
The initial concept leaned into the action words appearing on banners throughout the city, using them as the primary message with a smaller version of the 125th branding in support. After presentation, the city's communications department decided to take a different direction; shorter, simpler, and more minimal. Working closely with the Communications Manager, we refined the concept around three action words: Define... Celebrate... Explore... anchoring the left half of the billboard, with the photo collage filling the right. As part of the revision, the word "Explore" was removed from its original position above the "125 Years of Trail" mark and redeployed as the closing line of the action word sequence; a small but deliberate decision that gave the text a natural sense of progression.
The image border added to the top and bottom of the collage introduced an additional layer of visual interest. The diagonal divide between the border images follows the angle of the original "Explore" text descenders that had sat above the logo, carrying that implied forward motion into the composition.
The collage was built in Adobe Photoshop, with the full billboard designed in Adobe Illustrator. The biggest challenge was sourcing images at a resolution sufficient for print at that scale, a back-and-forth that continued right up to the final round of revisions, when the city provided a selection of high-resolution photos to complete the piece.
Mockups
Initial Concepts
