Walking & Wayfinding in the Westfjords
The passionate and diligent work to bring Walking & Wayfinding in the Westfjords to publication started over a decade ago. Readily accepted an invitation from the talented Wilderness guides, Henry Fletcher and Jay Simpson, to consult on communications strategy as they embarked on the campaign to raise funds to publish the compendium.
Many hands supported this project. We were honored to play a small but influential part. Photography by Jay Simpson, Henry Fletcher, et al.
International Collaboration
With each of us working remotely from various locations—Colorado, New York, United Kingdom, Iceland—we used Slack to keep in touch and share updates. A collaborative approach, we dialogued to deepen into the project, define the project timeline, milestones, deliverables, and determined what the success of a Kickstarter campaign would look like over Zoom. We adapted to and supported changing needs on strategy, design, and implementation over the life of the project.
Foundational Expertise
A fundraiser necessitated web design, content strategy, and collaborative messaging for wayfinding.guide pages to set a beautiful and informative digital foundation to showcase each part of the guidebook compendium and establish the hard won expertise of the authors.
Digital Ecosystem
Consulting on visualizing the digital ecosystem helped Henry and Jay to draw lines to how best to reach out and invite folks from their networks to support the campaign.
Outreach
A press template and draft letters were shared to support direct outreach with versions of this press release securing publication in Icelandic news and related media outlets. Social media strategy for all existing profiles and social media graphics were designed for the campaign to supplement author efforts.
Fundraising Efforts
The authors were encouraged to increase their fundraising goal 3x the original amount and collective efforts succeeded in raising 178% of the goal with over 400 backers. Walking & Wayfinding in the Westfjords also won the 2023 BANFF Mountain Book Award in the Guidebooks category.
