MIT Media Lab 40th Anniversary
Branding, logotypes, community engagementWhen the MIT Media Lab reached its 40th anniversary, the expected approach would have been to design an anniversary mark, apply it consistently, and move on. Instead, the anniversary logo became a community art project.
Working from the same glyph-making instructions that Pentagram provided when they designed the original identity, the same instructions I use when creating a logotype for a new research group, I created worksheets and distributed them across the Lab: faculty, staff, researchers, students, everyone. The prompt was simple. Draw a 40. Use the system. See what happens.
What happened was that people dove in, made strange and beautiful shapes, interpreted the grid in ways nobody had anticipated, and in doing so invested themselves in the outcome. The anniversary mark itself became ML>40, greater than 40, a small typographic choice that reframes the milestone as a forward-looking statement rather than a backward glance. The resulting marks were animated into a series of logo variations that live on the Lab's website and social channels, rendered as a large-scale installation in the lobby, and used by our videographer as a structural device for a promotional film drawing on 40 years of Media Lab footage. The community made the logo, and the logo made the anniversary feel like something that belonged to everyone.
+ Concept: Olivia Verdugo + David Sweeney
+ Design: Olivia Verdugo
+ 40s: The Media Lab Community
+ Video: Jimmy Day
© 2026 Olivia S Verdugo