Relay Graduate School of Education is a private graduate school offering practice-based programs for aspiring and current teachers. Relay New York, chartered in 2013, was the first NYC accredited graduate teaching school in over 80 years.

Pentagram was brought in to develop the environmental graphics for Relay’s new 40,000 square foot space in New York’s Financial District. I led the creative and art direction across a variety of spaces for study, learning, and collaboration, designing a system that not only helped navigate the space but embodied the passion and spirit of the teachers and staff who fill it.

Relay’s mission of equipping teachers to make meaningful differences in students’ lives became the creative anchor for the work. Each teacher has a story to tell, and each story has the power to uplift the people who encounter it. Throughout the space, the names of teachers who inspired Relay’s own students to enter the profession are applied in vinyl across the glass, and the photographs and imagery throughout the space were carefully selected to echo those same stories of passion and influence. Together they form a system that doesn’t just decorate a space — it honors the people who made it possible.