RIT design lab turns student talent into real-world results

When the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I) needed an animated short film explaining the climate impacts of food waste, they utilized the talent inside a budding student-run design studio within RIT's College of Art and Design.

Command+g Design Lab, a full-service design studio, employs roughly 30 students and is overseen by two faculty members in graphic design, associate professors Keli DiRisio and Carol Fillip, and serves a roster of clients spanning nonprofits, municipalities, and businesses across New York state. Since its founding in 2018, the studio—named after a Macintosh keyboard shortcut that groups layers together—has grown quietly into a distinctive experiential learning opportunity for students.

“It’s all grown on word of mouth,” DiRisio said.

Each semester, students take on new projects spanning multiple disciplines. Recently, Command+g animated a children's book, designed exhibits, cranked out 25 logos in two days for Young Entrepreneurs Academy students heading to national competitions, and built long-term relationships with local organizations like Artists Unlimited, a performing arts nonprofit.

“That’s the cool thing about working in graphic design,” said Michelle Fu, a fourth-year student from Naperville, Ill., studying graphic design, packaging science, and furniture design. “We get a little glimpse into all these fields.”

Fu, Jami Murillo, a third-year graphic design student from Seattle, and Ashley Persia, a fourth-year graphic design and packaging science student from Pittsburgh, took the reins on the NYSP2I project.

‌

Provided

A storyboard panel from Command+g’s collaboration with the NYSP2I is one of dozens of real-world projects the student-run studio takes on each year.

Their process mirrored professional animation studios with client meetings, a detailed project brief, storyboards, rough cuts, and several rounds of feedback. The finished product—an animated short video following the life cycle of cheddar cheese from pasture to plate—was presented at a statewide organics conference in April in Syracuse.

According to the students, the project was equal parts exciting and uncharted. Murillo had never worked on a motion piece for a paying client, and the style of the video—an aesthetic inspired by Vox’s explainer videos—was new territory.

Sherri Hamilton, marketing and communications program manager at NYSP2I, worked with the Command+g team and noted that the students handled everything, including revision requests that arrived during finals week, without missing a beat.

“That’s a good indicator to me that these are students who are prepared for the workforce,” Hamilton said. “They know how to juggle multiple competing priorities in a professional, seamless manner.”

That reputation has followed Command+g graduates in the workforce. Alumni have landed jobs at Crocs, L.L. Bean, and Bass Pro Shops and credit the studio for helping them get there. In addition, programs like Creatify, a design education initiative run by the studio in tandem with Bishop Kearney High School in Rochester, have grown directly out of successful client relationships.

According to DiRisio, the kinetic energy created inside of the studio every day makes it all work.

“It doesn’t feel like a job for a lot of these students,” she said. “Any time you go in there, there’s a handful of students. They’re working, they’re laughing, they’re talking.”

Fu said her experience sharpened something she'd been building for years—the confidence to advocate for her own work.

“In the beginning, I was kind of scared to tell clients things,” she said. “But now, it's just like, those are just the facts. You're coming to see me for a reason. I’m confident in what I'm doing.”