NYU’s Stern School of Business commissioned us to create an identity for their new experience, the Sophomore Cohort Creativity Challenge, a series of events that are geared towards creating camaraderie among Stern sophomore students, while working towards positive goals in the local community. To that end, we created a look and feel that was applied to a recent set of events, and will be adaptable for similar events in the future. Deliverables on this project included a poster design to promote the events, printed at 24″ × 36″, along with postcards and t-shirts.

NYU Stern Sophomore Cohort Creativity Challenge poster, initial concepts

During the Sophomore Cohort experience this year, students worked on one of three challenges: to build a bicycle for children in the community; to create a functional boat from odds and ends like cardboard and tape; or to make a teddy bear, also for local kids. The identity was designed to be simple, to use a limited but vibrant color palette, and to allow silhouette icons to represent the three activities in which Stern sophomores would participate.

Initially we came up with a handful of concepts, including posters with various type and color palettes. One possible direction was to use a blueprint style, with one poster per activity. But in the end it was decided that a more straightforward array of three icons with a two color palette was most eye catching and intriguing.

NYU Stern Sophomore Cohort Creativity Challenge Poster Alternative Colorways

A number of colorways were proposed, and we arrived at a lime and blue-black palette for 2010’s events.

I do not always have the opportunity to see my designs in use. In this case, the folks at NYU Stern have done great coverage of September’s events, including a series of photos on their Stern Undergraduate College Facebook page, and a video showing the designs in action: