← All five prototypes Prototype 3 of 5 — visual directions Kode Kinetics LLC for the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance · November 2026

Visual design — RFP section 4.3

Two directions, so you can choose rather than react

Section 4.3 of your RFP asks for design concepts. Our work plan puts two homepage directions in front of you in January. Here they are in November instead, so you can start the conversation before the contract rather than six weeks into it. Both use the same information architecture from Attachment 1 and both are built to WCAG 2.2 AA. What differs is the voice.

Direction A — Trail Survey

Cartographic, restrained, information-first Our recommendation
iditarod100.org
Iditarod National Historic Trail Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance

Seward to Nome · Alaska

A winter road, a thousand miles long

For generations this network carried people, mail, freight, gold and medicine across frozen rivers and tripod-marked passes. It is still here, and still used.

Plan a tripExplore the history

Where the trail goes Approximate positions · about 1,000 miles

    Locations and landscapes

    Kenai rainforest to the Bering coast.

    Many uses, one trail

    Subsistence, freight, mushing, local travel.

    A layered history

    Indigenous routes, gold, mail, the serum run.

    Communities along it

    Roadhouses became the villages that keep it.

    Why this direction

    Palette
    Winter dusk: snow carries blue shadow, brass for the gold-rush thread.
    Type
    Bitter, a contemporary slab with survey-lettering roots, over Public Sans — the typeface of the US Web Design System.
    Structure
    Hairline rules and a route device. No card kit, no drop shadows.
    Voice
    A trail authority. Accurate, useful, unsentimental.

    Choose this if the first job of the homepage is to orient someone who is going to use the trail, and if the Alliance wants a site that still looks right in 2032. It is also the cheaper direction to keep current, because it does not depend on a steady supply of good photography.

    Direction B — Roadhouse Archive

    Editorial, photographic, interpretive
    iditarod100.org
    Iditarod National Historic Trail Historic Trail Alliance

    Image area — Alliance photography, full bleed
    credit and rights recorded with the file

    Congressionally designated 1978

    The road that only exists in winter

    Nine hundred miles of frozen river, portage and pass. Walked, mushed and flown over for longer than Alaska has been a state.

    Plan a tripRead the history

    Interpretive panels

    1. Locations and landscapes

      From the Kenai Peninsula over the Alaska Range to the Bering coast.

    2. Many uses, one trail

      Subsistence travel, winter freight, mushing and local journeys between villages.

    3. A layered history

      Indigenous travel networks, the 1908 strike, the 1914 mail contract, the 1925 serum run.

    4. Communities along it

      Roadhouses a day apart became the settlements that keep the trail alive.

    Become a memberDues fund trail safety, grants and iTREC. From $30 a year.

    Join the Alliance

    Why this direction

    Palette
    Archival paper, oxblood and spruce — interpretive signage and printed history.
    Type
    Newsreader, a high-contrast editorial serif with an optical-size axis, over Archivo, a grotesque with signage lineage.
    Structure
    Numbered interpretive panels and full-bleed image wells, the way a trail wayside or an exhibition reads.
    Voice
    A storyteller. Warmer, slower, more emotive.

    Choose this if the priority is moving people — donors, members, visitors who have never heard of the trail. It rewards strong photography and will look thin without it, so it carries an ongoing obligation: somebody has to keep feeding it images with cleared rights.

    How to choose

    Comparison of the two visual directions
    What we comparedA — Trail Survey B — Roadhouse Archive
    Leads withOrientation. Where the trail is and how to use it. Emotion. What the trail was and why it matters.
    Best forOutdoor enthusiasts and rural communities — your two stated primary audiences.Donors, members and first-time visitors.
    PhotographyOptional. Works fully without it. Essential. Needs a steady supply with cleared rights.
    Ongoing effortLow. Text and structure carry the design. Higher. Every new page wants an image.
    Rural bandwidthVery light pages. Heavier; needs disciplined image handling.
    AgesSlowly. It is closer to a map than to a trend. Faster, as editorial fashions move.
    AccessibilityIdentical. Both are built to WCAG 2.2 AA with the same contrast discipline, keyboard behavior and reflow.

    What happens next, if you select us

    These are directions, not finished designs. In January we would develop the one you choose into a full responsive design system — up to eight reusable page types — with your photography, your approved copy and two consolidated revision rounds. Elements can be combined; several Alliance reviewers preferring different directions is a useful conversation, not a problem.

    The hatched areas marked “image area” are deliberate. We have not placed stock photography of Alaska, and we would not place a photograph of the trail, a community or a person without the Alliance confirming the rights and the credit.