Yellowstone Internship

Spending the summer as Visual Media Intern for the National Park Service in Yellowstone was special to me in so many ways. I was able to execute on a wide range of projects while working at the Albright Visitor Center in Mammoth, WY.

In a summer of record visitation at national parks across the country, I was certainly in the right place to learn how to reach millions of people through effective communication and design.

Working with my original supervisor, Dave Krueger, has continued beyond the YNP internship. As our careers progressed, he has pulled me in to assist with other NPS assignments, such as this one.

Comms strategy

Content creation

Copy writing

Exhibition design

Illustration

Publication design

Wayfinding

Each year Mammoth draws in herds of elk, and visitors and park employees alike often have dangerous encounters with them in the spring and fall. I navigated the NPS graphic identity grid to produce panels that were both informative and engaging.

These panels are currently visible in front of the Albright Visitor Center as of 2022.

I utilized my public relations skills to create, plan, and monitor #TripDayThursday all the way through summer 2021.

Each week, I highlighted specific features on park road segments as a virtual road trip. I updated a basic park map as a visual aid to viewers, and I added a personally illustrated graphic to tie in with each week's features. 

@yellowstonenps @YellowstoneNPS

YNP’s natural history museum on Yellowstone Lake was recently renovated, and the museum exhibits, all based around Yellowstone's native bird species, needed an overhaul.

During my internship, I created a series of graphics that were used to deferentiate each bird's diet, habitat, nest, and clutch size.

This project was an extensive redesign of nine wayside panels that make up the Fort Yellowstone Trail in Mammoth Hot Springs, WY.

These panels detail the history of the park's headquarters here in Mammoth, dating back to the early 1900s when the US army occupied Yellowstone. With an old fashioned sepia approach and a NPS Graphic Identity system to follow, this task took a surprising amount of time and flexibility to conquer.

These panels are currently visible along the Fort Yellowstone trail as of 2022, blending well with the colors of the surrounding architecture.

Junior Ranger programs at national parks have become increasingly popular, as these activities provide an easy way for parents to entertain children on long car rides. 

I had the opportunity to completely redesign the layout and illustrations for Yellowstone's Winter Junior Ranger Booklet.

These coloring pages paved the way last year for this internship, so now having the NPS official logo across the top and having them handed out at the park entrances in summers of record visitation (reaching ~4.86 million summer 2021!) is very special to me. 



©Audrey Scott McDonald, 2026