First Drafts.

Initially after a couple weeks of research I was really enamored with some old ‘Duke’s Tobacco’ packages and old Duke pins I had found. I liked the hand drawn typography and thought it would be an interesting experiment to abstract it and bring my own spin to it. I also wanted to use a color palette that was derived from natural inks and dyes found in native plants to North Carolina. These are a couple of those first explorations.

We Were Confronted.

There were no faces. None of the people who make Duke, well Duke. One of the stakeholders pushed back and I am so thankful that he did.

So I pivoted and struggled through figuring out the buses (because of a looming deadline) to then in turn figure out the rest. Eventually, I ‘Frankensteined’ together an identity with the key elements of a blue and white duotone with the chapel blueprint.

The blueprint was something I was adamant about not letting go of because it is a map of foundations. It shows the intentionality of this campus. A campus designed by a black man. That was something I wanted to celebrate in and through this identity.

Eventually.

Where we ended up.

This identity was a tough execution. It stretched a lot of my abilities. I ran into a lot of walls. I built systems, tore them down, and then rebuilt them again. Sometimes it was on purpose and sometimes it wasn’t up to me. This is an ongoing project and identity that is being used well into 2025. Anyways. It has been a fun journey and I now know how I’d rather go about it in the future.

This has been the real world application of ‘life long learning’ for me. I talked a big game in college about being someone who wants to be able to turn on a dime, ask good questions, and learn as much as I can. This project felt like a big, “do you actually though?”

I am by no means done learning, growing, unlearning, breaking down, putting back together, struggling though, etc. I don’t plan to be ‘done’ for a long time hopefully.