IIT College of Architecture's new look brings Bauhaus bang up to date

A few years ago the IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) Institute of Design got a beautiful new rebrand courtesy of COLLINS, and this year, it's the IIT College of Architecture's turn to get a new look.

The IIT is stepped in history. It became a global centre of modernism under the leadership of Mies van der Rohe, one of the pioneers of modern architecture and one of the directors of the Bauhaus. Mies van der Rohe created 21 buildings on IIT's campus, including the iconic column-free SR Crown Hall.

The new brand was created by Span, whose task was the convey this history in a way that would appeal to potential and current students. As you'd expect from an architectural college, the new brand is all clean lines and sleek edges. The backbone of the new look is the newly released Neue Galerie, a digital revival of Mies van der Rohe's Allzweck typeface. Based on Mies van der Rohe's personal sketches, Neue Galerie was created by bBox Type foundry and is also used in the new logo. In a beautiful font pairing, The Future is also used to add energy.

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The new website is built on a grid that uses the same 2x1 proportions as the Crown Hall and has generous portions of white space dotted throughout, which a press release describes as a "visual nod to Crown Hall's open floor plan".

Photography was also important in this project, and Span worked with the IIT team to organise over 8,000 images to help tell the story of the brand.

“We’re a branding-led design studio that works across all media and this project perfectly encapsulates that,” says Span partner and design director Bud Rodecker. “We’re not following trends, we are designing with intention and purpose – immersing ourselves in the subject matter to create work that feels authentic and resonant.

"More than that, we're giving the current faculty and students a brand platform that enables them to work together to design and build the future of architecture. We believe the new brand will help this storied institution continue its modernist tradition, reflecting it in ways that are unexpected, engaging and deeply effective.”

For more striking rebrands, see the China Now rebrand or check out the winners of the 2024 Brand Impact Awards.