Vermont College of Fine Arts
Frame your future; find your path
Bringing a new model of low-residency graduate arts education to practicing professionals with intensity and elan.
ROLE
Designer and/or creative director; Sametz Blackstone Associates
SCOPE
Strategy // Branding // Print // Environmental // Web
setting the stage
The overview brochure launched the identity and set the stage for VCFA's dynamic new brand.
The logotype, with its die-cut center, leads readers into a dramatic, experimental, shifting landscape of words, images, and color.
Guidelines: building out from the center
The brand guidelines document offers formal and philosophical insights. The texts, illustrations, and layouts describe both the how and why of the visual system: how to use it, how it embodies the VCFA spirit, and, most importantly, why design is a critical element of VCFA communications .
Bringing the identity to the small screen
The landing page featured a unique hero area composed of interactive stories, program navigation, and social and news feeds. The interior contrasted clear organizational structure with freeform application of background images and graphics.
A sampling of dozens of sizes and flavors of web banner ads.
a portfolio of programs
A portfolio of program brochures all follow the same general pattern, reinforcing the heft of the institution while speaking directly to the needs of prospective students in wildly varying disciplines.
Intimate, first-person photography, often shot from unusual angles or perspectives, reinforces VCFA's high-touch, student-centered pedagogical approach.
Posters destined for undergraduate program offices, among other locations.
Alumni and development communications
The inaugural issue of In Residence,
the VCFA alumni magazine.
The magazine follows the lead of the original website, promoting the college as a palimpsest of intersecting, mutually supporting programs and practices that all share the goal of helping mature artists reach the next stage of their creative journey.
A custom microsite supported a successful capital campaign.
a few basics
The second generation of the VCFA website streamlined the homepage experience.
VCFA has gone through many changes since we helped relaunch its brand—structural, pedagogical, and geographical. Through all of them, the identity we created together continues to serve VCFA as it evolves to meet the needs and demands of higher education's ever changing landscape.
case studies
Contact
I’m an esthetically omnivorous, intellectually curious designer, photographer, creative director, and educator with over 25 years of agency experience, a deep focus in education, arts and culture, and financial services, and an affinity for typographic and photographic adventure.
All material © Alexander S. Budnitz and/or the orgianzations listed
