In 2000 as an intern and again in 2005 as a freelancer, Monkey Outta Nowhere worked with the National Park Service to create a trail guide for the Twin Cities metro area. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area is a unit of the National Park Service that focuses on 72 miles of the Mississippi River as it winds through the Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding area. The trail guide included historical sidebars and specific directions for navigating difficult spots along the trail.
The 2000 version of the trail guide covered Minneapolis to South St. Paul while the 2005 version expanded north to Anoka, skipped south to Hastings and included updated information about new trails in between. Both guides offered an overview of the region as well as each specific trail segment. Each segment included a sidebar covering historic, natural or otherwise interesting features of that segment. In both cases we worked closely with designers to decide how to break up the region into segments and structure the entire guide.