As a seminar project in a graduate class on the digital humanities at WSU, taught by Dr. Kim Christen in Spring 2018, I created a Scalar book about the rhetoric of land in the wine industry. Because place and land were explicit topics in my project, I became interested in expressing those themes through my design. Within the local wine industry, the area's terrain and major river are fundamental for establishing place, and I hoped to create an organization that would reflect those values. In a note about my design choices in that first Scalar book, I wrote about my intentions for a geographic organization:

As I designed this Scalar book, I tried to think of the affordances that this medium creates. I lean heavily on the path function of Scalar. I think of it like taking a walk -- a path has been created for ease of navigation. However, there is room for meandering in this structure. Readers can choose to move through paths in different orders, move between them, take shortcuts, and wander backwards.

Looking through this excerpt book, you will notice that my attempt is short, and rather incomplete. For example, in the “Land” section, I envisioned organizing based on layers of the earth, with each step of the path a step deeper into the earth’s crust. However, that idea is, as of yet, not well conveyed, and I am still far from reaching the core.

Below is my first attempt to create a geographically organized argument. You can jump to my reflection here.

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Choose a path to learn more about what makes up the Columbia Valley's terroir.