A book of photos and essays documenting the Salt Lake Winter Olympics
Salt Lake City had planned for the Olympics for nearly a decade. Despite many controversies leading up to the games, they arrived, took place without incidents, and were fantastically successful. Only six months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the country was ready for some fun, and Salt Lake delivered it.
A few days before the Winter Olympics began, I got a call from the Deseret News — a Salt Lake daily newspaper where I had previously worked — to see if I was available to design a book featuring the photos and writing of the newspaper's photographers and reporters.
Of course, I jumped at the chance, but there was one significant consideration: the photos wouldn't be ready until the Olympics were over, and then I had exactly one week to design, build and ship the book off for printing. It was a 15-hour per day project, but it turned out great — all 125 pages.
Above: Front and back cover of the book
Digital photography was not yet commonplace by 2002, but the Deseret News invested heavily in digital camera equipment to eliminate the need for darkroom processing before uploading the photos to the Associated Press.
A Deseret News photographer told me that Mitt Romney, who was president of the committee that organized the Olympics, commented about our "unofficial" commemorative book turning out better than their official book.
Since the International Olympics Committee owns all rights to Olympics-related trademarks, almost no mention of the word Olympics appeared in the book. Instead, the authors used the term 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. The same was true of the Olympic rings logo — it only appears in some of the photos.
