IAIA 60th + MoCNA 50th Anniversary Campaign
Institute of American Indian Arts
2022
In 2022, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) celebrated its 60th anniversary alongside the 50th anniversary of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) with Making History, a year-long campaign celebrating the institutions’ histories, communities, and continued impact.
As IAIA’s Content Manager, I developed the campaign’s visual identity and helped carry Making History across a year of institutional communications, events, and programming. My work spanned design, digital communications, web content, social media, and photography, creating a cohesive campaign presence across channels.
My Role
Visual Identity · Graphic Design · Digital & Print Communications · Web Content · Social Media · Photography
The Identity
Building on IAIA’s existing Thunderbird mark, I created a vintage-inspired anniversary logo that incorporated 60 and 50 directly into the Thunderbird’s wings, bringing the two milestones together within a single recognizable symbol.
The resulting identity honored IAIA’s established visual language while giving the anniversary campaign a distinct and flexible look that could carry across the year.
2022 Commencement Program
For IAIA’s 2022 Commencement, I designed a four-panel foldout program featuring Making History, the panoramic anniversary photograph by IAIA alum Cara Romero. The format was designed specifically around the proportions of the photograph: when fully opened, the four panels reveal Romero’s panoramic image in its entirety, while the reverse contains the commencement program and names of the graduating class.
The piece brought the Making History campaign into one of IAIA’s most significant annual events while allowing the commissioned photograph to remain the focal point of the design.
Design: Four-panel foldout · Double-sided · Print
Print & Digital Advertising
Throughout the anniversary year, I designed print and digital advertising that extended the Making History identity beyond IAIA’s own communications channels and into the broader community.
A standout piece was a double-truck ad for the Santa Fe New Mexican’s Pasatiempo, spanning two facing pages to tell the interconnected story of IAIA and MoCNA. Titled IAIA—One Entity, Two Locations, Making History for 60 Years, the piece used the expanded format to bring together the institutions’ history, imagery, and anniversary branding in a single large-scale editorial-style advertisement.
Additional advertisements throughout the year adapted the campaign identity across a range of print and digital formats while maintaining a consistent visual presence.
Design: Double-truck advertisement · Print advertising · Digital advertising · Campaign design
IASA April Fool’s Campaign
For April Fool’s Day 2022, IAIA’s Communications team created the fictional IAIA Indigenous Arts Space Academy (IASA)—a Mars-based artist residency complete with an on-campus launchpad, “Artstronaut Training Center,” and a planned first mission to Mars.
The campaign was developed collaboratively by the Communications team, with our group brainstorming the concept, details, and jokes together before IAIA’s writer brought the story to life. I created the IASA logo and supporting campaign graphics, developing a visual identity that helped sell the fictional space program while still feeling connected to IAIA.
The finished campaign combined writing, design, humor, and institutional voice into an unexpected piece of content designed to surprise and engage IAIA’s audience.
My Role: Collaborative Concept Development · Logo Design · Graphic Design
The Art of Indigenous Fashion — Featured in Vogue
As part of my work documenting IAIA and MoCNA programs, I photographed The Art of Indigenous Fashion, the first fashion exhibition organized by the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. The exhibition brought together work by more than 20 contemporary Indigenous designers from the United States and Canada.
My exhibition photography was subsequently featured by Vogue in Christian Allaire’s September 2022 article, “A New Fashion Exhibit Spotlights Contemporary Indigenous Design.” All five images accompanying the digital feature were selected from my photographs of the exhibition and credited to me on behalf of IAIA.
My Role: Exhibition Photography · Visual Documentation
