As Rhoda Lubalin Fellows at the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography we propose to create a new visual identity for Cooper Union in the new millenium. Our project seeks to explore the relationship between the underlying principles of the institution, it's spirit, ideology and identity, and contemporary styles in graphic design. The final product of this study will be an identity manual that is both practical and theorectical. In addition, we would like to create a three-dimensional intrepretation of the themes explored in the manual through an installation at the Lubalin Study Center in April of 2000. This first semester will be devoted to researching the project, utilizing the the archives of the main library and the resources of the Lubalin Study Center. We plan to identify contemporary and historical visual resources in the Study Center as part of our research. The slide collection at the Lubalin Study Center documents portions of the exhibition history at Cooper Union which we consider to be a central aspect of the school's identity. We would like to contribute our scholarship award to the completion of this project, and plan to seek counsel and advice for various aspects of this project from faculty and staff members in both formal and informal academic exchanges.

We plan to begin our study by researching past identity programs of the school as preparation for an examination of a new logotype for Cooper Union. This is the beginning of our investigation and we expect that it will move in directions that we cannot predict at this time.