Kia ora,
My name is Rush Morice Fay and I’m a graphic designer from Auckland, New Zealand (Tuwhakairiora ki Wharekahika, Ngati Porou), specializing in print and publication design. I spent the past 11 years with two of Seattle’s primary art museums, the Seattle Art Museum and the Frye Art Museum. I am currently living in San Francisco and open to a full-time role in the museum or non-profit space.
Get in touch.
Ivy Invest Logotype and Branding
2024
Ivy Invest is an early-stage financial startup that offers endowment-style investment opportunities to the public.
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I developed the foundational brand identity and website design in collaboration with Ashley Ma(UX design), working with the co-founders to bring their vision to life. The logotype is based on leaf forms that suggest new and dynamic growth.
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Typeset in Inter by Rasmus Andersson and Merriweather by Sorkin.
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We chose Polymode Studio for their inclusive, collaborative approach and strong portfolio of art-focused work. As the Frye Art Museum’s sole designer, I partnered closely with their team to provide context and creative guidance to align the work with the needs of the museum.
The rebrand drew inspiration from the museum’s brutalist form, which was designed in 1997 by Seattle-based architecture firm Olson Kundig. Polymode drew design cues from the way light interacts with the building’s structure and materials to inform the new logotype and color palette. The logotype’s strong forward slash, representative of angular shadows cast by the museum’s pillars, is a visual device to highlight “Frye.” The slash provides a cohesive system under which new marks for the Frye Store and Frye Foundation would adhere to a shared structure.
The new typefaces, Murtaugh and Riggs, are a complementary duo created by Nikola Djurek and published by Typotheque. Designed to work as a team, they provide a versatile system across a variety of applications, from website body copy to exhibition signage. Slate gray and mauve, reminiscent of the polished steel of the entrance doors, were designated as the main brand colors. Extensive secondary and tertiary palettes include pastel blues, greens, browns, and purples.
The website, designed as a digital extension of the physical space, provides an architectural navigation to act as a holistic overview into the museum’s various offerings — events, browsing the collection, programs, and rotational exhibitions.
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Silas Munro, Lead Partner
Brian Johnson, Supporting Partner
Randa Hadi, Designer
Jay Marol, Designer/Developer -
Typeset in Murtaugh and Riggs by Typoteque.
Capt. Thomas B. Crawford Monogram
2021
Honoring my late father-in-law.
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When Tom unexpectedly passed away at the beginning of 2021, I knew I wanted to honor his memory by creating a custom monogram. Inspired by the work of German graphic designer Peter Voth and Tom’s collection of leather bound Encyclopedia Britannica which he was very fond of. Rest easy, Geeps.
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Typographic forms based on Cottonhouse by Type Everything.
Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem
Frye Art Museum, 2021
With works in a variety of mediums by nearly 80 artists dating from the 1920s to the present, Black Refractions presented close to a century of creative achievements by artists of African descent, and celebrated The Studio Museum in Harlem’s role as a site for the dynamic exchange of ideas about art and society.
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For the title treatment, I chose Zeta Fonts Blacker Pro, a wedge serif, for its high contrast and blade-like shapes, which provided strong visual contrast when set against Barkley L. Hendricks portrait, Lawdy Mama (1969). Both gold and a deep purple were used in the colour palette to highlight the regality of Hendricks’ portrait, which elevated the Black figure to the veneration of a saint.
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Connie H. Choi, Curator, Studio Museum in Harlem
Amanda Donnan, Curator, Frye Art Museum
David Strand, Associate Curator
Shane Montgomery, Exhibition Designer
Ingrid Langston, Head of Communications -
Barkley L. Hendricks. Lawdy Mama, 1969. Oil and gold leaf on canvas. 53¾ x 36¼ in. The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Stuart Liebman, in memory of Joseph B. Liebman 1983.25. © Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist's estate, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and American Federation of Arts.
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Typeset in Blacker Pro by Zeta Fonts and Whitney by Hoefler&Co.
Group Therapy
Frye Art Museum, 2018
Group Therapy centered on interactive projects and immersive installations by 12 international contemporary artists that comment on and adapt strategies of alternative medicine, psychotherapy, and the wellness industry.
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For the exhibition’s title treatment, I chose Dala Prisma by Commercial Type, which replaces the solid forms of the letters with a series of stripes to create an optical effect. This typeface represented the idea of a group show in which multiple threads of artistic practice come together to create a whole. “Pepto-Bismol Pink” or “Drunk Tank Pink” was used throughout the exhibition and marketing materials, known for its calming effect on stressed individuals. The campaign was rolled out across web, social, environmental, merchandise, and print collateral.
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Amanda Donnan, Curator
David Strand, Assistant Curator
Shane Montgomery, Exhibition Designer
Ingrid Langston, Head of Communications -
Kandis Williams. The Oratory Command: X Carmichael King Hampton, 2016. Xerox toner, collage on paper, 96½ x 87 in.
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Typeset in Dala Prisma by Commercial Type and Whitney by Hoefler&Co.
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Installation photography by Jueqian Fang; Installation view of Library of Babel by Marcos Lutyens; Installation view of Primal Speech by Liz Magic Laser.
Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
Seattle Art Museum, 2016
Kehinde Wiley is one of the leading American artists to emerge in the last decade, ingeniously reworking the grand portraiture traditions and drawing attention to the dialectic between a history of aristocratic representation and the portrait as a statement of power and an individual’s sense of empowerment. The artist began his first series of portraits in the early 2000s during a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He set out to recast assertive and self-empowered young men from the neighborhood in the style and manner of traditional history painting.
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I chose Dala Floda by Commercial Type as the title treatment due to its presentation of traditional letterforms in a modern style. Dala Floda is rooted in the typefaces of the Renaissance, but with the modern twist of stencil, and mirrors what Wiley sets out to achieve in his portraits. Cyan is used as the main color of the materials, drawing from the florals in the background of Wiley’s Saint John the Baptist.
When representing the artist’s name, I leaned into layering it with the intricate and highly stylized floral backgrounds of his portraits. In this way, the subject is brought forward and in some cases even obscures the title, building visual depth and intertwining Wiley’s name in his work.
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Catharina Manchanda, Curator
Chris Manojlovic, Director of Exhibition Design
Cindy McKinley, Lead Project Manager
Nina Mettler, Design Manager -
Kehinde Wiley. Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, 2013, American, b. 1977, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in. Colección Saorín & Sobrino. © Kehinde Wiley. Photo: Stephen White, Courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery.
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Typeset in Dala Floda by Commercial Type and Gotham by Hoefler&Co.
Live On: Mr.’s Japanese Neo-Pop
Seattle Asian Art Museum, 2014
As a member of the otaku subculture, Mr.’s work ties closely with otaku lifestyle, which is often marked by obsessive interests in anime and manga, confining oneself to one’s room with limited social contact, and choosing fantasy or virtual experiences over real-world interactions.
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For the exhibition’s title, I chose to mirror Mr.’s kawaii (cute) Japanese pop art style with Underware’s playful Bello Script. I employed a bold outline to punch up the title above the visually dense compositions. The bold outline is reminiscent of both graffiti and cartoon-style lettering, which is also thematic in the work. The color palette was inspired by Mr.’s portrait of Pharrell Williams, done in a mini-kyara or “mini character” style of anime.
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Xiaojin Wu, Curator
Chris Manojlovic, Director of Exhibition Design
Cindy McKinley, Lead Project Manager
Nina Mettler, Design Manager -
Mr., (Born Masakatsu Iwamoto). We're off to the outskirts of hope, 2014, Japanese, b. 1969. Acrylic, watercolor and pen on paper, 15.94 x 12.28 in., Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York, © 2014 Mr./Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., All rights reserved.
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Typeset in Bello Script by Underware and Gotham by Hoefler&Co.
Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion
Seattle Art Museum, 2013
Over three decades of tremendous innovation by Japanese fashion designers, who revolutionized the way we think of fashion today, were shown for the first time in Seattle.
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The title treatment I chose for this exhibition was Hoefler&Co.’s Gotham Condensed, which included a custom made katakana character translation above it. The title lockup was inspired by Japanese versions of Western movie posters of the 1950s and 60s, matching the larger-than-life tone of the exhibition. The garments were also set against a bright, radial gradient of color and appeared to outwardly glow. This treatment created a cinematic layering effect between the background, garment, and title, while also highlighting the garment as the otherworldy star of the show.
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Catharina Manchanda, Curator
Chris Manojlovic, Director of Exhibition Design
Cindy McKinley, Lead Project Manager
Kevin Schroer, Creative Director -
Kosuke Tsumura. Final Home Coat, 1994, Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, Gift of Mr. Kosuke Tsumura. Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama.
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Awards
1st Prize, Poster
1st Prize, Supplementary Material
2nd Prize, Press Kits, Marketing, and Public Relations Materials -
Typeset in Gotham Condensed and Gotham by Hoefler&Co
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London
Seattle Art Museum, 2013
On the outskirts of London, within the neoclassical Kenwood House at Hampstead Heath, resides a magnificent painting collection known as the Iveagh Bequest. Kenwood is home to an exceptional collection of Old Master paintings, including Rembrandt’s late period Portrait of the Artist (ca. 1665).
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I paired the title of “European Masters” with the elegantly informal script of P22‘s Cezanne Pro, intended to convey the calligraphic style of the period and provide a quick read to balance the exhibition’s extended title. The color palette was inspired by Portrait of the Artist with the warm golden hue of the background and burgundy of the garment. Touches of Pantone 874 metallic gold in the printed materials reflected the richness of the time period as well as the ornate gold frames of the exhibition.
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Chiyo Ishikawa, Curator
Chris Manojlovic, Director of Exhibition Design
Cindy McKinley, Lead Project Manager
Kevin Schroer, Creative Director -
Portrait of the Artist (detail), ca. 1665, Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch, 1606-1669, oil on canvas, 45 3/4 x 38 1/4 in., Kenwood House, English Heritage; Iveagh Bequest (88028836), Photo courtesy American Federation of Arts.
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Honorable Mention, Supplementary Material
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Typeset in P22 Cezanne and Gotham by Hoefler&Co