ICON DESIGN
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
Founded in 1978, the Mingei International Museum in San Diego specializes in showcasing folk art, craft, and design throughout the world. And in 2020, my first job out of college was as a freelance designer and illustrator for the museum. I was reached out to by Elizabeth Martinez specifically for my expertise in typography and layout design, as well as my ability to illustrate.
In 2020, Mingei was undergoing a massive renovation of the entire museum. This necessitated new signage, and I was asked to design some of the new iconography. Directed by Elizabeth Martinez, the icons’ forms are all informed by the uniquely squared O from Mingei’s signature font, Mingei Mono. Using this letterform as a guide, I created important wayfinding symbols that feel unique and inseparable from Mingei’s DNA. Because these were to produced for signage, absolute precision was required to make them ready for production.
LAYOUT DESIGN
TEMPLATES
ILLUSTRATION
Every month for Mingei’s outreach program, the museum hosts a Mini Mingei event aimed towards parents and their children. The goal of each Mini Mingei is to encourage children to learn about crafts around the world, and inspire them to create their own art with their families. I was first assigned to update the existing instructional layouts, emphasizing clarity and legibility for ease of use. The lesson plans also had to be localized into Spanish, so the layouts had to accommodate any longer copy. I was also able to illustrate the different steps for the program, aiming to be both coherent and aesthetically pleasing.
I also re-designed the Mini Mingei program for the next month, where we switched to photographs instead of hand-drawn illustrations for the different steps. To accompany the Daruma lesson plan, I was also asked to draw the magazine spread advertising the program for Mingei’s quarterly magazine, Communique. These illustrations were also used for museum stickers and postcards.
