Statement

Above: Cover and spread of an article written by Katherine McCoy, distinguished professor of design at the Kansas City Art Institute, about the department's history.

It was 1964 when Rob Roy Kelly arrived in Missouri to form what is currently the graphic design department at the Kansas City Art Institute. This legendary program was the first in the nation to separate graphic design from the fine arts and a curriculum was developed by Kelly that introduced students to core principles of graphic design. It is this strong past that inspired this present project.

Every year, a pair of students receive the opportunity to create a new identity system for the School of Design's upcoming school year. These students are in charge of decorative door and wall treatments and school of design informational materials. With this project, we wanted to represent how this department has evolved from its historical foundation to its present structure. We took the basic elements of swiss design, the fundamentals of what this program was founded on, and reinterpreted them to fit within today's design culture.