designing for connection
2025
Poster design for a national student competition
Designing for Connection: AI & The Culture of Care AI Art and Design Student Competition
An Iowa State University College of Design Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative
Designed with Yongyeon Cho, Associate Professor of Interior Design
Design an engaging visual identity and poster that capture the spirit of Designing for Connection: AI and the Culture of Care—the first national student competition exploring how AI intersects with Art, Graphic Design, and Environmental Design. This competition invites students to reimagine AI not as a tool for simulation, but as a partner in meaningful visual storytelling. Participants are challenged to create AI-assisted images that transcend the typical “AI look,” instead evoking innovation, emotional engagement, and human-centered expression.
The poster employs a grid of small AI-generated images to evoke the iterative methodologies inherent in utilizing AI as a design instrument, culminating in the formation of the letterforms 'AI' from within the grid itself. The background features an AI-generated depiction of an artist or designer’s studio, where the window frames subtly echo the poster’s grid structure, reinforcing the conceptual and visual coherence between process, tool, and environment.
awards
Silver Award, Graphis Poster Awards 2026
Shortlisted, B.I International Poster Biennial 2025
publications
Graphis Poster Annual 2026, B. Martin Pedersen 2025
photo credits: Brandon Olsen
Index the design practice of brandon olsenlocation: the midwest
© ordered mass 2025