The MIT Museum recently published Countless Connecting Threads: MIT's History Revealed Through its Most Evocative Objects, a beautifully designed and printed 236-page book with over 550 images.

In 2011, in celebration of MIT's sesquicentennial anniversary, the MIT Museum exhibited 150 objects that chronicled MIT's development over 150 years. The museum commissioned Malcolm Grear Designers to create the visual identity for the MIT 150 Exhibition, design the exhibition, as well as the exhibition website, which provides various views and more in-depth information on each object in the exhibition. The studio was then asked to design the book, inspired by the MIT 150 Exhibition, to present the 150 objects.

Countless Connecting Threads is a unique collection of visual and written meditations about the making and meaning of MIT. It includes a preface by current MIT President L. Rafael Reif and a foreword by recent president Susan Hockfield. The book and the MIT150 Exhibition were curated by MIT Museum Curator of Science and Technology Deborah Douglas who wrote in the book's introduction that, "while the subjects of science and engineering are a general focus of the school, MIT has set the worldwide standard in these fields."

The book is organized into the same ten themes highlighted in the exhibition, such as “Pioneering MIT,” “Problem-Solving MIT,” “Bionic MIT,” “Uniquely MIT,” etc. Included in the 150 objects selected are many of the school's more popular items, like the Baker House Piano Drop and the Smoot Measuring Bar, to some of the lesser known objects like the Copenhagen Wheel, a device that transforms an existing bicycle into a hybrid with regeneration and real-time sensing capabilities.

The book, designed by Malcolm Grear Designers, was printed by Meridian Printing and bound by Acme Bookbinding.

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If you're on campus for Brown University's commencement this weekend, you may notice the new interactive donor recognition display for the Brown Annual Fund. Malcolm Grear Designers developed the installation, working closely with the Annual Fund, to raise awareness as to the crucial role of annual donors and their impact on students and faculty.

Located in the main lobby of the Stephen Robert Campus Center, the installation greets visitors with lively and engaging video profiles as well as snapshots of how these funds benefit the University. The state of the art installation allows the University to easily update the profiles and the list of recognized donors each year. In addition to encouraging future donors, the display expresses the sense of appreciation and gratitude students have for this important source of funding.

Among numerous other projects for Brown, Malcolm Grear Designers also designed the sign system and donor recognition for the Stephen Robert Campus Center as well as the Faunce Arch super-graphics and campus map.

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The Anthony Quinn Foundation recently awarded twelve high school students scholarships for their demonstrated talent in the arts. The Anthony Quinn Foundation Scholarship Program is modeled after the life of artist and actor Anthony Quinn and aims to help students financially with participation in summer arts programs. Scholarships are awarded in the fields of visual arts and design, performing arts, media arts, and literary arts.

The Anthony Quinn Foundation was established by Quinn's wife, Katherine, as a way to honor Quinn's devotion to creating and collecting art. The foundation seeks ways to raise and distribute funding for arts scholarships. Katherine says that “As the cornerstone in its vision, mission and values, the Anthony Quinn Foundation embraces creativity and the arts not only for their pleasure but for their central purpose in growth and development.”

Malcolm Grear Designers designed the scholarships awards. The studio also designed the visual identity for the foundation and numerous posters, catalogues, invitations, and awards. Our long relationship with Katherine Quinn and the Anthony Quinn Foundation began when she asked us to design the retrospective book Anthony Quinn: A Lifetime of Creating and Collecting Art, a 228-page book available in a regular and limited box edition.

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The Newport Art Museum will be exhibiting the show titled NetWorks 2011-2012 from June 1 through September 15. The exhibition will feature the work of twenty five artists that have been selected and recognized by the Rhode Island arts project known as NetWorks.

For over five years, the Rhode Island arts project known as NetWorks has been discovering Rhode Island’s finest artists and documenting their work and lives in short videos. The project was started as a collaboration by long time Rhode Island arts supporter Joseph Chazan M.D. and AS220's artistic director Umberto Crenca. Since the project has begun, 54 artists have been documented and showcased through exhibitions, discussions, photographic portraits, and video profiles. The project continues to grow as new supporters and partners learn of the endeavor.

Chazan believes that “NetWorks introduces, documents and publicizes visual artists who live and work in Rhode Island. We hope that through the videos in particular, the lives and works of the artists will influence a wide audience of all ages who are interested in art and artists. It is my personal hope that young people interested in art making will be inspired by these examples to work hard to achieve their goals, and that collectors will be inspired to collect art by Rhode Island artists.”

The 2012 NetWorks artists are Kate Blacklock, Brian Chippendale, Wendy Edwards, Richard Fishman, Lucas Foglia, Corey Grayhorse, Bunny Harvey, Tayo Heuser, Eugene Lee, Meg Little, Jane Masters, and John Udvardy. The 2011 NetWorks artists are Nilton Cardenas, Barnaby Evans, Nancy Friese, Philip J. Jameson, Shawn Kenney, Scott Lapham, Andrew Moon Bain, Janet Prip, Andrew Raftery, Duane Slick, Esther Solondz, Mark Taber, and Laura Travis.

Malcolm Grear Designers designed the exhibition catalogue as well as the visual identity for the NetWorks’s project. Malcolm Grear, who was selected as one of the 2010 NetWorks artist, was the lead designer on these pieces.

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Currently at Gallery Kayafas in Boston is Robert Richfield's exhibition titled Perpetuidad. The exhibition focuses on Richfield's photography in rural Mexican cemeteries and specifically on the array of personal keepsakes that mourners have attached to memorial sites.

In an essay by Eulogio Guzmán, PH.D., Tufts University, Guzmán declares that “These photographs complement the ways in which Mexicans soften the emotionless, sterile, rigid order of cement matrices. The images invite the viewer to join Richfield's meditative wanderings through these hallowed grounds....Perpetuidad demonstrates Richfield's ability to visually capture and create impactful, solemn exchanges in the least obvious of places, in the most reverent of ways.”

The exhibition will end on May 11, 2013. The Gallery Kayafas is located at 450 Harrison Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts and is open from 11am to 5:30pm Tuesday through Saturday. More information can be found by viewing their website.

Malcolm Grear Designers has designed numerous catalogues for Richfield and the exhibition's invitation poster. The 20 x 26 1/2" poster is printed on 100lb cover stock and is available for purchasing by visiting Robert Richfield's website.

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This past Sunday Bryant University president Ron Machtley sat down with representatives of the Chinese education ministry to sign agreements that will promote a reciprocal relationship between the U.S. and Chinese higher education systems. For over a decade Machtley has been meeting with his Chinese counterparts to create a partnership between the two nations. Bryant University established the U.S.-China Institute in 2005 to provide students and faculty the opportunity to expand global experiences and to offer Chinese-related services to the local community. Only three other U.S. institutions have joint agreements in China.

Bryant University currently has a relationship with the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and the Beijing Institute of Technology Zhuhai. Plans are to have students available to attend the Beijing Institute of Technology Zhuhai by the fall of 2013. In exchange, the Chinese government is helping Bryant University create an international visitor's center on the Bryant campus. The center will be a replica of the Forbidden City's Shu Fang Zhai building. Once the $15 million project is completed, it will become the new home of Bryant's U.S. - China Institute.

Since 1991, Malcolm Grear Designers has had its own unique relationship with Bryant University. The studio has designed the main entrance sign, interior and exterior sign systems, including wayfinding, building identification, and donor recognition for the campus. We are currently developing the sign program for the Bryant Center. MGD is also the designer of the alumni magazine, Bryant. The University is celebrating its 150^th anniversary this year. Ron Machtley and his wife Kati were recently acknowledged for their years of dedication to Bryant University in a front page article in the Providence Journal.

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Beginning April 3, two art exhibitions reflecting upon the U.S. war in Iraq will be on display at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University – “Daniel Heyman: I am Sorry It is Difficult to Start” and “Wafaa Bilal: The Ashes Series”. Both exhibitions focus on the war's impact upon the Iraqi civilians and the role of art.

An adjunct professor at RISD, Daniel Heyman traveled in the fall of 2006 to Jordan and Turkey to interview former detainees of the Abu Gharib prison. As the men reported the details of the abuses they endured while in detention, Heyman made their portrait. Producing about a dozen portraits, he later overlaid excerpts from the mens' testimonies of abuse around the portraits. Heyman views his series as a way to personalize the horrors of the war's victims and as a way to further expose the abuse of the American soldiers at the Abu Gharib prison. The exhibition was curated by Jo-Ann Conklin.

Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal, an assistant arts professor at New York University, composed his series from ten photographs of models that the artist created from mass-syndicated images of the war. Using scenes such as Saddam Hussein's bed, or a lone hospital pillow left behind, Bilal removed the people from the photographs and replaced them with 21 grams of human ashes throughout all of the models. Twenty one grams is a reference to the supposed weight of the human soul when it leaves the body. His work brings an uneasy feel to the otherwise benign scenes of war. The exhibition was curated by Ian Alden Russell.

The exhibitions will continue until May 26. An opening reception will be held on Friday April 5 beginning at 5:30pm. The David Winton Bell Gallery is free and open to the public. Visit their website to learn about their hours, location, and past exhibitions. Providence Journal writer Bill Van Siclen wrote two reviews of the exhibitions: U.S abuses in Iraq: Two views at Brown; Portraits put a human face on the war in Iraq. The film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib which directed by Brown University alumni Rory Kennedy  will be exhibited on April 18 at 5:30pm at the List Art Center Auditorium as part of the programming around these exhibitions. The film will be proceeded with a public discussion.

Continuing its long-standing relationship with the David Winton Bell Gallery, Malcolm Grear Designers created the invitations, installation graphics, catalogues, exterior sign, and banner for the exhibitions.

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NIRSA, the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, has awarded Brown University's new Fitness and Aquatics Center the "Outstanding Sports Facility" honor. The state-of-the-art facility is comprised of three top-tier programming areas, the Nelson Fitness Center, the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, and the Zucconi Varsity Strength and Conditioning Center.

Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the building incorporates the historic cupola and clock from the University's former Marvel Gymnasium. The architecture provides a neoclassical focus to the athletics complex, which is centered on the Ittleson Quad, a generous green space with gardens, pathways, and benches. The roof of the Aquatics Center features the largest  hybrid solar-powered electrical/heating system in the country, providing heat to the pool.

Malcolm Grear Designers designed all of the exterior and interior signs as well as the donor recognition program. A variety of materials — granite, blue stone, and slate — were used for different areas of the complex. The combination of typography, color, and proportion with these traditional materials, strikes a balance between the classic and the cutting-edge characteristics of the architecture.

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Brown University's 33^rd Annual Student Exhibition will open on Friday March 1 from 6pm to 8pm at the David Winton Bell Gallery. Organized by the Visual Art Department, the juried exhibition will include the artwork of thirty-two Brown University students. Organized by students Fahmina Ahmed, Nati Hyojin Kim, and Hannah Winkler, the exhibition is juried by guest jurors Robert P. Stack and Vanphouthon Souvannasane. Souvannasane is the director of Providence's Yellow Peril Gallery and Stack is the curator of the Yellow Peril Gallery.

The exhibition will continue until March 17. The David Winton Bell Gallery is free and open to the public. Visit their website to learn about their hours, location, and past exhibitions.

Continuing its long-standing relationship with the David Winton Bell Gallery, Malcolm Grear Designers created the visual identity, exterior sign, and banner for the exhibition.

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There are many ways to support the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston (ICA). Recently, Malcolm Grear Designers (MGD) created an elegant solution for recognizing donors who have supported the ICA's Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater. Donors can "buy" one or more of the theater's 325 seats. As part of their overall sign and donor recognition design program, MGD designed plaques that are inset into the theater seat armrests. The brushed stainless steel, typography, and layout relate directly to the ICA's architecture and brand. This recognition helps supporters feel a sense of ownership and involvement in the ICA's varied programs and events.

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