DESIGN OLD — Natalie Ho

Yellowstone National Park became the world’s first national park on March 1, 1872, spanning an area of 3,468 sq. mi, with lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges. This complete identity embraces a custom logotype and a mountainous system inspired by the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent.

Date

Category

Advisor

Fall 2025

Identity

Doug Scott

Brown Political Review (BPR) is Brown University’s entirely student-written and student-run, nonpartisan magazine for political journalism. The organization is home to a staff of 203 students working in all aspects of magazine and online content production.

View digital copies of the magazine here.

Date

Category

Spring 2024 – Spring 2026

Publication

Kea is a display face made from wire. Traditionally, script typefaces are designed around the calligraphic hand, connecting letters, dramatic flourishes, and fancy ligatures. Kea challenges this prescriptive definition. What if we worked with a different calligraphic tool? What if a typeface had no overlaps, no intersections, and a complete disregard for rules, while still maintaining the spirit of handwriting?

Date

Category

Advisor

Fall 2025

Type

Kathleen Sleboda
Christopher Sleboda

Elliot is a text face featuring a full extended Roman character set including stylistic alternatives, ligatures, small caps, and symbols. It is a refined, modern exploration of old-style classics like Garamond and Caslon, while still keeping the rounded and imperfect quirks of hand-drawn typefaces. Elliot is ideal in long form text and novels.

Currently in development to be released with Blaze Type.

Date

Category

Advisor

Ongoing

Type

Richard Lipton
Pauline Fourest
Libbie Bischoff

RESET x IKEA is a Feng Shui (風水) campaign that encourages everyone to arrange their living space to manifest calm, reduce anxiety, and improve the qi (flow of energy) in their home. Focusing on core elements of Feng Shui like placement, orientation, and accessibility, the campaign has collaborated with IKEA to fulfill their mission: “creating a better everyday life for the many people.”

Date

Category

Advisor

Spring 2025

Campaign

Richard Rose

Benbao is a unicase typeface with a big gentle personality. Inspired by Reggie, the World’s Tallest Dog, and Pearl, the World’s Shortest Dog, Benbao has a sort of funkiness that can only be achieved through stretched and squeezed components.

Date

Category

Spring 2026

Type

Studio HanLi approaches design in a playful, “heuristic” way, specializing in graphic design, typography, and bespoke typefaces. Elias Hanzer is a long-time collaborator at Dinamo Typefaces where he designed ABC Arizona. Lucas Liccini approaches publishing and type design from a intellectual and contemplative perspective, previously at Studio Manuel Raeder and Phaidon Press.

I had the greatest pleasure of interviewing them and asking about their practice.

Date

Category

Advisor

Spring 2025

Publication

Kathy Wu

Where’s The Green is an anthology of writings and video on how to incorporate greenery into a city that wasn’t built for thriving life. It hinges on the concept of salutogenesis: the idea that city infrastructure should be built on the basis of promoting health, rather than preventing harm.

But what can we do as humans in our current lifetime? How can we be more sensitive to greenery in our daily life? How can we re-introduce green amidst the urban chaos? How can we find joy in an environment that is biophobic?

Date

Category

Advisor

Fall 2024

Motion, Publication

Lucinda Hitchcock
Anastasiia Raina

HONK HONK is your loud uncle from the Bronx: blunt, disillusioned, and opinionated. Luckily, he knows when you’re cursing, and will automatically censor you using contextual alternates. He’s also too busy and impatient to read everything you say, so if you start talking about the city, he’ll finish your sentence for you with the corresponding glyph. Now move! You’re takin up the whole sidewalk!

Date

Category

Advisor

Spring 2026

Type

Gabriel Drozdov

A Destructive Friend is a dos-a-dos poetry book on parasitic, delusional and destructive friendships. The book challenges the concept of the narrative through experimental typesetting and redacted text. Text taken from This American Life.

Special thanks to Ian Cozzens and Fleet Library for the Laurie Whitehill Purchase Prize Award in the 10th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists’ Book Contest. Available now in RISD’s Special Collections.

Date

Category

Advisor

Fall 2023

Publication

Emily Rye