Ryan Schlesinger


Work

About

72 Undefined



Jan  - May 2024
Creative Direction, Identity, Brand, Event, Wayfinding, Editorial, Marketing

Credits
Faculty Lead: Bernard Canniffe
Undergraduate Designers: Clay Spahn, Natalie Lang, Whitney Reever, Libby Wilken Project Description
72 Undefined is 2024’s yearly branding initiative for The Graphic Design Senior Show with Iowa State University, an event showcasing the diverse final capstone projects of graduating seniors and experimental option studios.

My Role
Assigned as the graduate lead under my assistantship at Iowa State, I led recruitment and creative direction. Working closely with a small team of 5, we worked on the complete visual brand and theme name from front to end. This involved setting up processes and allocating roles among the team members, weekly critiques of design, and strategizing placemaking and wayfinding for the event itself.




ConceptThe core concept centered around representing and celebrating the senior class through every aspect of the identity. The name and logo mark come from the 72 graduating seniors presenting in the show, diverse in their design areas of interest, expertise, and capstone projects. “Undefined” captures this diversity in a rebellious and playful way, thinking outside the box and the meticulous defining of skills, tools, etc. that the students will find in the job world they would soon enter.

Colors and branding assets were developed from a detailed survey sent to the senior class, leading to a data-driven system serving as an abstract representation of the senior class in every aspect. Primarily, our main braind colors were black and white, so as not to overpower the other colored boxes, each one representing a single students chosen color swatch.













Undefined BookletThe concept shines the most in the celebratory booklet distributed to every graduating senior. Each spread draws from the survey each student fills out, with the “hex index” acting as a legend for readers to indentify students by their color swatch, subverting the traditional year book portraiture style through a minimal editorial design that felt personal to every student.















Event
The event merchandise and wayfinding also took advantage of our “hex index” and the systematized color swatches, serving as unique identifiers for each stuents capstone space. Maps were printed on large foam boards around the space, and as a square-fold brochure that visitors could take with them.















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