One of the coolest projects we worked on at Herff Jones every year was the Brass Rat for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had the pleasure of working with two incredible illustrators for the 2024 version. The site for it is available here. One of the best parts about having been part of Herff Jones will always be the students and athletes we got to work with. It’s impossible to put into words what an incredible opportunity to is to experience and celebrate their achievements with them, and no project puts that into perspective better than the Brass Rat.

Unfortunately, I was never able to attend in-person sessions with the artists due to the time and location of the meetings, but I was the Lead Artist of the department during the time and was able to work very closely with the two artists from my team that were working on it. Hundreds, if not a few thousand hours go into the design every year over the span of a few months. We work closely with a ring committee comprised of students from that graduating year who share their insights and ideas, that we turn to life. The art is amongst the highest quality we produce every year, and must also be 100% manufacturable, especially for a client like MIT. Everything that appears in the art must appear on the final ring, no exceptions.