Time and the Andersen Windows Centennial History Book

This award-winning book documents the 100-year history of the Andersen Windows Corporation. Working in collaboration with an executive team from within the organization, an independent writer and co-developer, and two independent photographers, we researched the company using physical archives, personal interviews and generated a book that identifies and presents the stories of the people, the places, and the organizational and family cultures that defined them during their first century.

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The adjacent images depict three aspects that represent ‘time’ the primary theme of any history book and one that defines and compliments the content and structure of this book.

Light — Whatever direction a reader moves through the book, whether it’s from the center out, or from either end, we experience the passing of time and we read about the passage of time through the decades. To visually reinforce this, each chapter opener includes images of cast shadows that move from right to left, from east to west, as you progress through the pages. The dimensional objects that have cast shadows within each section, also correspond to the same light angle determined by the opener.

White Pine Section — The white pine forests of Northern Minnesota were legendary. This cross section of a tree was harvested for Andersen Windows in the late 1800’s. The growth rings reveal it was hundreds of years old, a scale of old growth not common anymore. We featured its image to accompany the graphic timelines within the book.

Process — I encourage my clients to include and highlight the employee’s perspectives when telling the stories of an organization whenever possible. The images of the color stamped lumber ends depict a color-coding system used to track and account for an individual employee and departments productivity in the assembly plant. Each color represents a different worker during a specific shift. These images were used as full bleed end sheets. They became a metaphor for how the success of an international corporation begins and ends with the employees.