Aurora, the second largest city in Illinois after Chicago, had been working diligently to improve its image through downtown revitalization and architectural restoration. After ten years of steady progress on bringing back the beautiful buildings of its historic district, it was time for a retrospective.

Capitalizing on Aurora’s colorful past, a booklet was designed to showcase the dramatic changes that had steadily been going on over the past decade. Many of the buildings had been restored to their original turn of the century glory after years of being obscured by 20th century faades.

The piece itself was designed to incorporate the beautiful patina of worn surfaces combined with lyrical deconstructed typographic flourishes. Finally, as a finishing touch, thoughtful, poetic musings on the beauty of restoration in all forms were written for each of the spreads.