Sand is the foundation of our build environment. It’s a part of the concrete that makes up our city buildings, the windows placed in them, and the asphalt that makes up our roads—and we are slowly running out of it. “Grain of Sand” is large-scale book that revolves around the 99% Invisible episode “Built on Sand,” with additional supportive texts on the encompassing theme of overconsumption.

In its design, the book plays with sand’s relationship with fragilty and strength. The thin serif chosen for the quotes, while feeble on its own, forms a strong typographic form when compressed down together. The use of small monospace body copy alludes to the texture and scale of grains of sand.

The exploration of scale nods towards the large impact of something so small on our civilization and the size of our unnecessary overconsumption.