graphic design — ryan karczewski

m.arch instagram

Starting in 2025, the Unvirsity of Michigan’s Taubman College created a social media account specific to the Masters of Architecture program. I worked with Ryan Britain, Larissa McCoy, Ngoc Minh Deng, and Chang Chu in order to develop the account’s brand and create all of its imagery.

master of urban design marketing + branding

Starting in 2025, the Unvirsity of Michigan’s Taubman College created a social media account specific to the Masters of Urban Design program. Within this project, I worked directly with the Program Director and the Taubman College Marketing Team to create a significant online presence. Through specific branding, photography, and narrative/story telling - we worked to create an account that felt personal and inviting while also academically driven to entice future students in applying.

data presentation / transit regionality

Transit Regionality examines mobility patterns across the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater metropolitan area to identify potential corridors for expanded regional transit. Through layered mapping of traffic volumes, bus routes, bike infrastructure, residential density, and employment centers, the project reveals a fundamental mismatch between where people live, where they work, and how they travel.

The analysis shows that housing is widely dispersed while jobs are concentrated in a few dense nodes, forcing commuters onto a limited number of congested highways and bridges. Existing transit and cycling networks appear extensive but lack frequency, continuity, and regional coordination. In response, the project proposes targeted high-capacity transit corridors along the region’s most heavily used pathways, positioning coordinated, multimodal expansion as essential to the Tampa Bay region’s long-term economic and spatial resilience.

writing

dimensions calendar

Dimensions, the student led architecture publication at the University of Michigan, releases an award winning book at the end of every winter semester. As a part of the Dimensions 38 team, I manage and lead both the Social Media and Design Teams, and this year, the social media team held a “Just the Scraps” event in which we invited students to bring scrap materials and collage whatever they felt like. We then took these collages, scanned them, and collaged them together to create a 2025 Calendar to help raise money for our upcoming publication.

The full pdf is for sale on the dimensions website.

dimensions volume 38

As Creative Lead for Dimensions Volume 38 at Taubman College, I spearheaded the conceptual and graphic direction of the publication, shaping both its visual identity and narrative framework. The volume was structured around the idea of process, positioning design not as a fixed outcome, but as an evolving series of actions, transformations, and material experiments.

Drawing inspiration from Richard Serra’s Verb List - a catalog of generative actions such as “to fold,” “to tear,” “to suspend,” and “to repeat” - the publication was organized through verbs rather than themes. This action-based framework reframed student work as dynamic and iterative, foregrounding making, testing, and reworking over final form. Each project was curated and sequenced to emphasize movement, progression, and experimentation, allowing the book itself to operate as a spatial and temporal narrative.

Visually, the design language was rooted in the cyanotype printing process. The deep blues, layered transparencies, high-contrast silhouettes, and textured overlays referenced the act of exposure and development; mirroring the way architectural ideas emerge through layering, light, and time. Cyanotype became both aesthetic and metaphor: a process dependent on contact, reaction, and transformation. The layout system emphasized negative space, bleed conditions, and moments of imprint, reinforcing the sense that the publication was less a static archive and more a record of design in motion.

Through close collaboration with editors, faculty, and contributors, myself and the other leads guided the publication from conceptual framework to final production: developing typography standards, image treatment strategies, pacing, and material consistency. The result is a volume that reads as both document and artifact: a cohesive narrative that foregrounds experimentation, making, and the generative power of process within architectural education.

On top of this publication, I designed and spearheaded the development of various collaging workshops - put on by Dimensions, for Taubman Students - that culminated in a Calendar for 2025. Due to this production, and the proceeds from each sale of the printed calendar, we were able to afford various items we wanted to include in the book: a rubber band to hold it closed, various paper types, and specific folds in the cover.

full book

4th ave food park branding + logos

The 4th Ave Food Park, “Gainesville’s Backyard”, is a hub for local restaurants, coffee shops, and outdoor events within Gainesville, FL. Focusing on that vintage outdoorsy feel, it’s historic red triangular signage inspired the basis for its rebranded logo.

opus coffee merchandise design

Opus Coffee has been a huge opportunity for me within my career; starting as a low level barista within 2020, I was able to quickly rise up the ranks and eventually become the Ast. General Manager and their Content Creator and Graphic Designer. I still continue to work as their in house Graphic Designer remotely.

As the Content Creator and Graphic Designer, I worked directly with the Marketing Director in order to come up with and implement new marketing strategies, campaigns, and graphics. I made all graphics for the company, both internal and customer facing, led a partial rebrand of reorganization of their image, and controlled all social media and customer facing marketing designs and language.

This position helped expand my knowledge of graphic design, specific to a commercial business, photography, merchandising, and countless other skills specific to marketing.

opus coffee photography

Opus Coffee has been a huge opportunity for me within my career; starting as a low level barista within 2020, I was able to quickly rise up the ranks and eventually become the Ast. General Manager and their Content Creator and Graphic Designer. I still continue to work as their in house Graphic Designer remotely.

As the Content Creator and Graphic Designer, I worked directly with the Marketing Director in order to come up with and implement new marketing strategies, campaigns, and graphics. I made all graphics for the company, both internal and customer facing, led a partial rebrand of reorganization of their image, and controlled all social media and customer facing marketing designs and language.

This position helped expand my knowledge of graphic design, specific to a commercial business, photography, merchandising, and countless other skills specific to marketing.

opus coffee branding + logo redesign

Opus Coffee has been a huge opportunity for me within my career; starting as a low level barista within 2020, I was able to quickly rise up the ranks and eventually become the Ast. General Manager and their Content Creator and Graphic Designer. I still continue to work as their in house Graphic Designer remotely.

As the Content Creator and Graphic Designer, I worked directly with the Marketing Director in order to come up with and implement new marketing strategies, campaigns, and graphics. I made all graphics for the company, both internal and customer facing, led a partial rebrand of reorganization of their image, and controlled all social media and customer facing marketing designs and language.

This position helped expand my knowledge of graphic design, specific to a commercial business, photography, merchandising, and countless other skills specific to marketing.

swamp head brewery

As the Marketing Coordinator for Swamp Head Brewery in Gainesville, Florida, my focus was primarily on social media marketing and photography, while I aided in event planning, and marrying their graphic design with their physical space and online atmosphere.