MIT Media Lab

Using the same underlying grid as the previous logo, the designers extended that identity to each of the 23 research groups that lie at the heart of the Lab鈥檚 activity.

Pentagram has designed a new visual identity for , the innovative, interdisciplinary research laboratory at MIT. The design began with designer Richard The鈥檚 25th anniversary logo for the Media Lab, which was based on a seven-by-seven grid. Using that same grid, the Pentagram team generated a simple ML monogram to serve as the logo for the Media Lab. Using the same underlying grid, the designers extended that identity to each of the 23 research groups that lie at the heart of the Lab鈥檚 activity.

The result is an interrelated system of glyphs that at once establishes a fixed identity for the Media Lab, but celebrates the diversity of activity that makes the Lab great. Helvetica, so central to MIT鈥檚 communications when the Media Lab was new, has been reinstated to support the overall system.

Client

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sector

Education
Technology

Discipline

Brand Identity
Signage & Environmental Graphics

Office

New York

Partner

Michael Bierut

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Retrospective: Shakespeare in the Park

In 1954, impresario Joe Papp began a summer tradition of staging free outdoor performances of Shakespeare, inaugurating the Public Theater鈥檚 beloved Shakespeare in the Park festival. Pentagram partner Paula Scher, whose relationship with the Public spans four decades, has designed a new identity for the series for thirty consecutive summers. Each campaign is customized to the season鈥檚 theme, creating a highly visible graphic vocabulary for outdoor advertising, social media, and on-site signage.

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2025