This personal project began through my role as a marketing intern with Marist Dining Services, where I was given the opportunity to design a new merchandise tote bag for the department. The project combined branding, illustration, and community-centered storytelling, with the goal of creating a design that felt both visually appealing and emotionally connected to campus life. Rather than focusing on a generic university design, the tote bag was intended to celebrate the identity, culture, and shared experiences of the Marist University community through subtle but meaningful visual references.
When designing the tote bag, I wanted the overall aesthetic to feel homemade and personal while still maintaining a polished and professional finish. I focused on incorporating recognizable locations, symbols, and references from around campus that would resonate with students and alumni in a more intimate way; creating moments where viewers could recognize spaces or traditions that felt personally meaningful to them. To keep the design cohesive, I limited the palette to red and black, allowing the natural tote bag material to function as a third color within the composition. Throughout the illustration, I included details tied closely to Marist culture, including references to past mascots, the fashion department, the student-run shop, the local area code, seasonal campus trees in bloom, and the Walkway Over the Hudson. Altogether, the tote bag was designed to function as a visual story of student life and shared community experiences at Marist.
