MMXX

Zak Jensen is a graphic designer in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Mary Banas is a designer and educator in San Francisco, California

We met when we both lived in San Francisco and we started a Pizza Club together. Shortly thereafter Zak took a job at Harvard Art Museums and it’s been a mostly long-distance friendship ever since.

“Hey, do you want to do this?” “YES.” [emails, texts, ideas, references, sketches, emails, texts] “Let’s send the final files and answers.” “Ok!”

It’s about different ways of forming connections. We haven’t lived in the same place for years, so staying in touch requires some effort and creativity. Now, in quarantine, this is true for most relationships everywhere. The reference that spurred the design in this direction came from an unlikely source; New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, who advised people to “be socially distant, but spiritually connected”. A shirt won’t change things, but the process of making it was one way for each of us to stay in touch with a friend. MMXX is 2020.

So many reasons! It goes back to being spiritually connected. It’s important to feel “seen” and understood as a person, and that can happen in a collaboration. Collaborating is also an opportunity to be reminded that things are bigger than ourselves—these days we welcome any excuse to get out of our own heads.