Sagi Haviv, Tom Geismar, and Mika Owens teach a class on corporate identity design at SVA, a college of art and design whose mission is to educate future generations of artists, designers, and creative professionals.
This class, unlike a typical seminar, is run as if it were a professional agency. The students are taught in a conference room, and together, they find a real-world non-profit client that needs both a logo and a new identity system. Throughout the semester, the develop a new identity for the selected client beginning from the research stage and continuing to a client presentation.
Because this project is so vast and, truthfully, challenging, the students begin the semester with two projects that help train them to think creatively to distill their epic ideas into a more simplistic form. One of those challenges is to create a series of book covers for well-known Shakespeare plays. The exercise resulted in striking images conceptualized from a bigger idea, much like the process of developing a new logo.
The student's book covers are impressive, thoughtful, and genuinely wrap up grand Shakespearean themes in an uncomplicated way, most definitely not a simple task. Heartbreak is seen with a sword through a heart, madness with a skull adorned in a crown, and familial relationships get reflected through hands reaching out to one another but not quite touching.
The students all used the same brief to create these covers, yet the outcomes are anything but similar. Take A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example. One cover features water droplets forming the loose shape of a heart, while another features a play on Nick Bottom's comedic character with the outline of a donkey.
The creativity is unparalleled, and the potential for these students is endless. Also, we wouldn't mind having a few of these editions take up a little space on our overflowing bookshelves.
If you're curious to see more of their work, the student's names are linked above their work.
