Ashton Design

Public heroes: Food For Thought celebrates the food service workers that prepare and distribute over 88,000 meals each day to ensure Baltimore City Public School students don’t go hungry. To honor their hard work, the Baltimore Museum of Industry partnered with Food and Nutrition Services to create an audiovisual exhibition that places the typically back-of-house staff front and center. Ashton developed the exhibit’s identity and interactive experience to complement portraits taken by photojournalist J.M. Giordano and interviews hosted by WYPR radio producer Aaron Henkin.

Key details we chose for the exhibit include cafeteria furniture, such as melamine chairs, which also set the color palette, and traditional folding tables. The photography portrait style makes the subjects look and feel like superheroes, while the accompanying audio gives each their own voice.

Taken together, the visual system exudes an “Educational Bauhaus” style, thanks to its dedication to geometric forms, simplified color palette, and function-as-design sensibility.

See the full case study here: https://bit.ly/43RlQKq

The Miguel B. Fernandez Family Foundation Center for Innovation & Collaborative Learning: A new state-of-the-art, sustainable, 35,000-square-foot building at Loyola University Maryland was built to enhance how members of the Loyola community learn, teach, collaborate, innovate, research, and network.

We conceptualized and designed a comprehensive donor recognition system, exterior building signage, ADA/code signage, interpretive elements, and branded graphics. All components were inspired by a central theme found in the building’s name — innovation and collaborative learning.

Donor recognition was a key element of this project, with a significant presence both inside and outside of the building. The inspiration for many of our sign types, distraction graphics, and our contemporary 2-piece cross design came from folded paper, leaning into the idea that paper is one of humankind’s significant innovations. Painted quotes that wrap the stairwell walls carry on this ‘folded’ concept.

To honor the rich history of the university, we designed graphic totems that are placed throughout the space, featuring both images and text. The new Center is now located where a small chapel once stood, so we created an installation showcasing historic stained glass to honor its legacy.

See the full case study and more images here: https://bit.ly/3Mg6xSw