MFA Design faculty, Milton Glaser, has teamed up with MyBhutan, a newly launched travel portal for the kingdom of Bhutan. Through a partnership with the Tarayana Foundation and the support of His Royal Highness Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck, Matt DeSantis founded MyBhutan to streamline the booking process and provide resources offered by local businesses and ultimately help create a sustainable positive social impact for the country.  Milton and Matt worked with MFA Design first-year students in the fall of 2014 and 2015 on designing logos and packages for potential entrepreneurial projects. Students, Anthony Cappetta and Di Kong collaborated on the logo design for MyBhutan.

Bhavika Aggarwal, MFA Design ‘16:

“As part of the Design and Intentions course led by Milton Glaser in Fall 2014, the first-year class was asked to identify business development opportunities unique to the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan, and execute a quick attempt at the design, branding and marketing of these ventures. The exercise was initiated in collaboration with the Tarayana Foundation, which works towards creating long-term self-sustaining economic opportunities for rural Bhutanese people.

We began by collectively doing research, and establishing interesting and uncommon Bhutanese traditions, crafts, and practices. Our class of 20 split into small groups of up to 3 participants, and each worked to develop individual ventures with a truly Bhutanese spirit. Projects included an adventure and sports tournament, retirement homes in the countryside, a range of 100% organic food and beverage brands, and handcrafted lifestyle products made by traditional artisans. Simultaneously, students designed an overarching identity for the Tarayana Foundation, as well as a mark to indicate ‘100% Organic, Made in Bhutan.’ At the end of the semester, the class collated these projects into a book and presented them to a representative of the Tarayana Foundation.”