Iterate — Exhibition Design — Ethan Sheaf-Morrison

Overview

Iterate was the 2024 postgraduate design showcase for Te Kura Hoahoa, the School of Design Innovation at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. My role was to develop the exhibition’s complete visual identity: a logo and mark, a typographic system, a grid-driven imagery language, and the print, motion, and spatial applications that carried it across the exhibition and its promotion.

The brief was to create a system flexible enough to hold together a cohort of wildly different research practices, yet distinctive enough to read as one show. The answer was iteration itself — a modular grid and a small set of repeatable elements that could be recombined endlessly, so every application felt like another pass at the same idea.

Iterate exhibition — main view — Iterate — the 2024 postgraduate design showcase, Te Aro Campus Atrium.

Brand Identity

The wordmark stacks a solid iterate over a half-cut echo of itself — the logotype literally repeating and shifting, an iteration in the letterforms. Three red dots and a rising arrow act as supporting marks, drawn straight from the grid.

Horizontal lockup.

Iterate vertical logotype — Vertical logotype.

Iterate primary logotype — solid over a half-cut echo — The primary logotype — a solid setting over its own half-cut repeat.

Colour

The palette is deliberately spare: a single vermilion red against black and off-white paper. Red is reserved for accents, marks, and moments of emphasis; black carries the type; the grid does the rest. The restraint keeps 30-plus distinct research projects from competing, and makes the red read instantly as Iterate.

Iterate square card showing the red, black and white palette on the grid — One accent red, black type, white ground — the whole system in a single card.

Typeface

Type is limited to Neue Haas Grotesk Display Pro — Bold for headers, Medium for body, Italic for captions — set primarily in lower case to stay inline with the logotype. The Swiss neo-grotesk lineage anchors the whole system: tight, neutral, and built for the grid.

Iterate poster demonstrating the Neue Haas Grotesk type system on the grid — Neue Haas Grotesk, set lower case and locked to the grid.

Imagery & Grid

Every layout is built on the same modular grid, and the imagery grows out of it — abstract line work, concentric curves, and halftone spheres that read as iterations of a single form. The studies below pan across that system: grid, mark, and abstract figure recombining as the eye moves.

Grid study — logotype and dots on the modular grid

Grid study — type and date locked to the grid

Grid study — abstract halftone imagery on the grid

The grid as a generative device — the same modules recombined across the system.

Applications

The system was designed to travel: from large-format posters and campus banners to square social cards and a motion graphic. Each application is another pass over the same grid and marks.

Iterate event poster — full portrait format — Event poster — the full lockup: logotype, dots, date, and directional arrow.

Iterate square info card — event details

Square info cards and banner variants derived from the same grid.

Iterate wide horizontal banner with grid, logotype and abstract sphere — Wide-format banner for the campus atrium.

A short motion graphic extends the identity into screen — the grid drawing itself in, dots and arrow animating along it.

Iterate motion graphic — the grid and marks animating into place.

The printed publication gathered the cohort’s work into a 44-page catalogue, threaded saddle-stitch.

Exhibition publication — threaded saddle stitch, 44pp — Exhibition publication. Threaded saddle stitch. 44pp.

The Style Guide

Every rule above lives in a printed style guide — the reference that kept the system coherent across contributors and applications. Page through it below, in order, as it was bound.

Iterate style guide — page 1 of 34 — The Iterate style guide — cover to publication, 34 spreads. Use the arrows, click the page edges, or press ← / →.

Iterate style guide — page 2 of 34 — The Iterate style guide — cover to publication, 34 spreads. Use the arrows, click the page edges, or press ← / →.

Exhibition

Installed in the Te Aro Campus Atrium, the identity scaled up into banners, wayfinding, and the hanging exemplars — the flat system finally standing in space.

Shot of exhibited exemplars — Exhibited exemplars from the cohort.

Tools

Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe After Effects

Gallery

Iterate event poster — grid, logotype and halftone sphere

Iterate square info card with event details

Iterate horizontal banner with grid and abstract imagery

Iterate detail shot of main entry banner