Work – Lauren Meranda Design

Cloth Face Mask Cards for CHA Residents

Posted on November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 by laurenmeranda

Cloth Face Mask Cards for CHA Residents

Design & Riso Printing
Studio Brazen + National Public Housing Museum
May 2020

As cases of COVID-19 spread throughout Chicago, those who were marginalized before began feeling it even more. Access to PPE was not being provided to folks living in public housing in Chicago. Studio Brazen + the National Public Housing Museum worked with Chicago-based artists and activists Alexandria Eregbu, and Mary Scott-Boria & Darthula Young, who sewed the masks as part of #MuseumsAtHome.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Lisa Yun Lee, the director of the National Public Housing Museum passed them out to residents. Each mask came with a card with the storied history of mask wearing in the US and instructions on how to safely wear and care for the mask.

The cards were printed at NEIU on the Art + Design Department’s risograph printer in three colors (pumpkin, cornflower, and black). Risograph printing is eco friendly, using rice-based ink, and works like a cross between screen printing and a xerox machine. Each color and side of the page is a separate run through the machine.

Looking Back: Chicago Design Milestones

Posted on November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 by laurenmeranda

Looking Back: Chicago Design Milestones

Exhibition Design & Branding
Chicago Design Archive (CDA)
Archeworks, 2019

In the first public event hosted by the CDA, this exhibit showcases highlights of the collection in Chicago Design Milestones. Developed in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago and Columbia College Chicago, the Chicago Design Milestones installation visualizes the evolution of Chicago design by its examination and accentuation of historic characteristics of design works in the CDA collection over the last 10 decades.

Belonging: Place, Power, (Im)Possibilities Exhibition

Posted on November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 by laurenmeranda

Belonging: Place, Power, (Im)Possibilities Exhibition

Physical + Virtual Exhibition Design
Tonika Lewis Johnson / Chicago Justice Gallery
September 2020

Tonika Johnson chronicles the ways in which nine young people have been made to feel they don’t belong in their own city in a series of portraits and interviews. While Johnson’s portraits of young peoples’ experiences paint a grim picture of hierarchy, surveillance, entitlement and narrow mindedness, it is not a tale of defeat.

Through their own creative agency, young people push back against the politics of racism, exclusion and containment by creating their own “free spaces” and organizations that contest the commons.

In addition to the artwork, the exhibition features a mural by Joe “Cujodah” Nelson, scholarly research and an interactive map encouraging visitors to explore their own experiences with belonging and exclusion.

Due to COVID-19, both Johnson and Chicago Justice Gallery wanted to put out a virtual exhibition that made the content available to all. We developed an interactive parallax website, where visitors can scroll through portraits, listen to interviews, add content to the interactive map, and experience “alternative spaces” through a change in scrolling direction.

Experience the virtual exhibit

History Lessons: Everyday Stories from Chicago Public Housing

Posted on January 14, 2019November 30, 2022 by laurenmeranda

History Lessons: Everyday Stories from Chicago Public Housing

Exhibition Design
National Public Housing Museum, Summer 2018

Named #6 in the Chicago Tribune’s top 10 exhibitions in Chicago in 2018.

Instead of showcasing rarefied objects in the standard museum fashion, this one put on display mundane things from public housing residents — a mason’s tools, a Pyrex dish, a garden hose — and told the deep human stories behind them. Objects were loaned from public housing residents, past and present, and each label was written from the object owner themselves during a writing workshop held at the museum.

Raymond “Shaq” McDonald stands with a model airplane he was given as a child. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Exhibit designed for the National Public Housing Museum at ArcheWorks, curated by Lisa Yun Lee and Richard Cahan, with design assistance from Andrés Alejandro Chavez.

Adventure Learning Center and Camp

Posted on January 10, 2019November 30, 2022 by laurenmeranda

Belonging: Place, Power, (Im)Possibilities Exhibition

Logo Refresh and Website
Adventure Learning Center and Camp
Nassau, Bahamas, 2018

http://www.adventurelearningcenterandcamp.org/

Adventure Learning Center and Camp (ALC Bahamas) is a place for students and families in Nassau, Bahamas, to come and engage in a camp experience. The camp and center have a petting zoo and other attractions appealing to young children and families. They offer after school programming as well as traditional sleep away camp experiences.

ALC Bahamas wanted to refresh an outdated logo for new materials while still being able to use old signage while transitioning. The logo has been simplified and is usable for a larger variety of materials, from donor outreach to event branding for children.

In addition to the revised logo, ALC Bahamas needed a new website that worked for both their camp functions as well a space for their community events run through the center. The new website features both aspects of the organization and has a blog function running on WordPress CMS, so the staff can easily add content to without prior web editing experience.

Wabi Sabi: Design in Nature Retreat

Posted on June 7, 2018November 30, 2022 by laurenmeranda

Wabi Sabi: Design in Nature Retreat

Event Branding
Judson University, School of Art & Design Creative Retreat, 2017

In the fall of 2017, Judson University’s Art & Design Department took their students to Camp Wandawega in Elkhorn, WI, for a weekend retreat exploring the idea of Wabi Sabi. The Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things unconventional.

Branding & Promo

Created the year prior at the camp site, this logo was made with the assistance of students by projecting text onto the leaves while selectively moving branches for long exposure photographs. The images were then digitally manipulated for color. Multiple images were then compiled to create an animated logo, which was used for social media marketing for the event.

Info Booklet and Program

Before the To guide the students through the weekend experience, everyone was given a handmade book. Its contents included reference information, such as a daily schedule and meal information, as well as a workbook leading students through the weekend curriculum. With quotes from artists, historical figures, and poets, and imagery created in the same way as the logo, the book set the tone for their stay.

Setting

To set the scene, signage was placed throughout the camp, students were given branded swag, and the meal area was decorated with brand colors and aesthetic.

Logo design developed with the assistance of Katie Dunbar and Andrés Chavez.

Photographs by Kate Heard and Rachel Loomis.