Brand Identity & Visual System for an Inclusive Academic Community

CLIENT

SIPBUR

MY SUPPORT ROLE

Brand Strategy, Logo Design, Brand Identity, Presentation Template Design

YEAR 

2024

LOCATION

UCSD, San Diego, CA

Context

Science Isn’t Perfect But You Are (SIPBUR) is an academic seminar series based at UC San Diego, created to support underrepresented minorities in academia. The initiative provides a space for researchers and students to share work, discuss their lived experiences, and build a community within environments that have not always felt accessible or welcoming.

SIPBUR needed a visual identity that could balance academic credibility and human warmth. It had to show their seriousness of purpose, without reinforcing any of the exclusionary or intimidating norms often associated with academic spaces.

The Challenge

The challenge was to design a brand system that:

• Communicated trust, legitimacy, and professionalism within academic contexts.

• Felt inclusive, affirming, and approachable for diverse audiences.

• Could be used consistently by faculty, students, and volunteers, many of whom may not be designers.

• Scaled across presentations, digital materials, and event communications without visual fatigue.

In other words, I had to design a solution that balanced structure with softness, clarity with emotion, and consistency with flexibility.

My Approach

Guided by my belief that brands are living ecosystems rooted in values and community, the work began with understanding SIPBUR’s purpose, audience, and cultural context. With that in mind, I developed the brand identity to function as a system. The team now has a visual identity that’s grounded in warmth, humanity, and resilience; typography and color choices that prioritize legibility, clarity, and approachability; a flexible logo system that works across formal academic settings and community-centered spaces; and illustration and graphic elements that soften rigidity while maintaining credibility.

To support long-term use and consistency, I also designed presentation templates and supporting assets that allow non-designers to communicate confidently while maintaining brand integrity.

“Ilya does an amazing job keeping things down to earth and really listening to us and we cannot thank her enough for that. The thematic elements really contextualize everything we wanted and display the message we wanted without actually saying it. She really took everything that we said as clients into account and provided us with an amazing work product in the end that we could be proud to display to our attendees.”
Eric and Consuelo, Founders

Outcomes & Impact

The result is a visual ecosystem that reinforces SIPBUR’s mission of creating space for underrepresented voices to be seen, heard, and valued within academia.

The identity helped to establish SIPBUR as a credible academic platform that was also a welcoming community space. Adopting the brand system across seminars and academic programming supported consistent visual communication. Their presentation templates enabled faculty and student speakers to focus on content while remaining on-brand. Design decisions also emphasized clear hierarchy, legible typography, and strong contrast to support usability across various formats.

SIPBUR represents the kind of work Sun Lily Studio exists to support: mission-driven initiatives where brand identity is not about aesthetics alone, but about belonging, trust, and long-term impact.

Here, the brand served as the roots that anchored their values, affirmed community, and created space for growth, while its expression across presentations and events became the reach that extended those values into lived experiences.