Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has a proud tradition of having a student-run Student Union, the responsibilities of which include designing class rings. At the beginning of sophomore year I volunteered to oversee the design process for my class's rings, and over the next two years I hired a 9-member committee, organized meetings, and learned more about class rings and school traditions than I had initially thought possible.

Although my Ring Committee worked with existing ring templates and didn't do any of the manufacturing design (that was left to the professionals we hired; after-all they needed something to do), we did just about every other product design step from start to finish. This included communicating with the student body, consulting with the alumni association, designing multiple pieces of custom art, and also conducting an entire bid process to select a vendor.

(below) Original side/shank sketches made by the committee prior to digitization.

I cannot claim individual ownership for the project as the entire process was collaborative, however I can claim responsibility for the design of the associated class logo. I have always jumped at opportunities to do logo design, and working with classmates and utilizing surveys to work with the class to find a solution was a rewarding challenge. Today, you can find the class logo emblazoned upon the bands of our class rings.

The concept started relatively the same throughout the project: a word-art using "RPI" and "15". The previous class had a rather unusual logo from a similar concept, so our aim was to learn from their mistakes and create something very solid and recognizable. The result (above) is one of my proudest achievements. Below are some of the designs that the committee considered before settling on the final four, which were then sent to the vendor's artist to digitize and enhance for manufacturability (final image).