For over 30 years, Third Floor Design has given TU students the opportunity to work on professional design projects with local, regional, and national nonprofit organizations, collaborating for positive social change. Since the inception of the in-house student design firm, more than 165 interns have contributed over $1.6 million in design work to over 225 agencies and organizations across seven states.
Recently, the School of Art, Design & Art History welcomed M. Wright, associate professor of graphic design and new creative director of Third Floor Design. “I’m honored to be working with a brilliant group of students to carry on a legacy that began in 1992, when Professor Teresa Valero founded Third Floor as a student design studio for social good,” Wright said.
Kendall College of Arts & Sciences is among the hundreds of clients the students serve, and it is a special annual tradition for Third Floor to design the college’s holiday card. “This year, they chose to foreground the college’s new ampersand symbol and all that it represents about interdisciplinarity and collaboration across the college,” Wright reflected. “Their initial proposals for the card design explored several options, including a snow globe filled with snowflakes and ampersands, another design featuring campus architecture and vellum paper for a frosty effect, and even an ambitious idea to create a set of interlocking cards that could be stacked together to make a freestanding sculpture.”
In the end, the prevailing design concept incorporates the Kendall College ampersand and the TU logo into a holiday sweater pattern designed by senior art major Daws Boyd. “I wanted to create a festive and cozy design that resembled the front of a holiday sweater,” she said. “I created small stitch shapes and placed them together in various patterns to achieve the knit-like effect. I incorporated the TU logo and the Kendall College logo in the stitching on the front of the card along with the more traditional holiday sweater elements.”
“I am proud of all the ideas the students came up with and delighted for Daws to have this opportunity to showcase her creative talents,” said Wright.
Keep an eye out for more Third Floor Design credits on further promotional materials!