Carnegie Mellon Design Lecture Series | Fall 2024 ― Spring 2025 | Team: Caleb Sun
Branding, Motion Graphics,
Print + Digital Media Production
For students, by students.
The Carnegie Mellon Design Lecture Series runs every year, bringing in leading industry speakers across the design industry chosen by the student body. The series aims to capture a wide breadth of designers to reflect student interests, ranging from graphic, industrial, experience, and game design. As leaders of the Lecture Series committee, Caleb and I developed the year-long identity system alongside serving as liasons between the School and our guests. Our work has taken shape in the real world via the School’s social media outlets, posters and flyers, backdrops, as well as exclusive interview zines for attendees.
Typography and Shape
The Lecture Series system is built on one base component that serves across our typography and image treatments. Using a custom brush built in Illustrator, an eye-catching flair is added to our headers and titles set in GT Alpina Italic and Cofo Gothic Light. These frames serve as the main graphics, filling our system with playfulness, spontaneity, and a unified way to showcase the speaker and their work.
Building Blocks, Building Futures
DLS is a fantastic opportunity for students to listen and connect with seasoned members of our industry, learn from their path, and begin to cobble together what a future in design could look like for themselves. The building-block style of the identity reflects the valuable lessons learned and revealing more about the speaker beyond their work. The grid, type, and blocks come together to form compositions that can be translated across print and motion. A physics-driven motion system results in a unique layout for every speaker and seamless loop transitions.
A new color scheme is made for each and every speaker, filling the walls of campus and social media feeds. Since our identity is year-long, we devised a dark palette for fall and a light palette for spring, keeping interest alive without any drastic changes. A new color scheme is made for each and every speaker, filling the walls of campus and social media feeds. Since our identity is year-long, we devised a dark palette for fall and a light palette for spring, keeping interest alive without any drastic changes.
A Deeper Dive
Alongside the talks, our guests graciously sat down with the Lecture Series team before their visit to Pittsburgh to do exclusive interviews that were produced into zines for attendees. More candid and beyond what can be said in an hour-long talk, we cover opinions on the state of the industry, sources of inspiration, and simply, more stories.
The fantastic Dylan Vitone giving his convocation speech.