In first grade, our teacher assigned us a project. Each student was assigned an animal, and our task was to research that animal. We compiled our research into a short, ten page book. The animal I chose was the Mongolian wild horse, and the experience was a blast. I absolutely loved the process of researching, drawing pictures and maps, and ending up with a designed object.

A few months later, during the summer of 1990, I decided to make another book about one of my favorite animals, the wolf. I spent several weeks photocopying pages from National Geographic World magazine, redrawing maps and diagrams, filling pages with some very bizarre editorial drawings, and typing paragraphs on an ancient word processor. The finished pages were then comb-bound at my father's office.

While designing my recent book, Forgetting Oildorado, I recalled the process of making The Wolf Book. I travelled to my parents house where the book resided, and flipped through it for the first time in well over a decade. It's fascinating to revisit something that was once so cherished, and to see the striking parallels between something that was designed at the age of 7 and the work that I'm currently producing.

When I made this book, I had no idea that I'd end up a graphic designer. But it seems that from a very early age, I was -- unknowingly -- well on my way.