Tyler Le ’20 commissioned to design the College’s 2025 New Year greetings

Pennsylvania College of Art & Design’s new year’s greetings have, for the past few years, been designed by creatives who best know the College community inside and out:

Our students, and our alumni.

This year’s was no exception, and hundreds of the College’s supporters recently received cards designed by Tyler Le, a 2020 Illustration BFA graduate whose work centers on bold design and color. 

Tapped in early November to create PCA&D’s 2025 greetings, Le says the design ultimately chosen was his favorite out of all the options he submitted. Though he’s busy with his day job as a designer and side gig work, Le took some time to talk about the process, the project, and what he hopes the new year brings creatively and professionally: 

What was your creative process for this — what mediums/programs did you use to create the final “PCA&D” image? 

Tyler Le: The process truly started off with reminiscing of my time here at PCA&D and how I worked while in school. I wanted this piece to feel like a celebration but in a more creative way. The use of shapes, movement, and color palette helped make that happen. The cherry on the top was just making it mine with my grainy texture, perspective, and color arrangements.

As far as mediums, sketches were created on Procreate and the final illustration was illustrated in Adobe Photoshop.

What inspiration did you draw on?

TL: This piece, a lot like my other work, is inspired by many different illustrators that I admire. Some older, some still living and creating: Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Max Löffler, and César Canseco, to name a few. But the aspects that draw me to these individuals particularly is their use of bright colors and how they’re used along with textures.

Where are you working now?

TL: I am based in Roselle, NJ, currently, which is a good hour train ride away from the city where my current workplace is located, Business Insider.

My title is currently “Designer” but I do many different things from mentoring incoming interns, creating small and large packages of work for editorial pieces, and art directing commissioned illustrators for various articles as well.

Outside of my main job though I have started finding a love for some product design and things that aren’t editorial related. Hoping this year to jump back into greeting cards/postcards so stay tuned for that.

Are there any 2025 goals you have that you’d like to shout out?

TL: I always have ongoing goals so that’s a loaded question, but I will say that for a few years now I’ve been hoping to land a gig making a beer label so we will be continuing to strive towards that. I also am available for some other editorial gigs outside of Business Insider similar to my recent work for The Burg magazine located in Harrisburg, PA.

Is there anything about this commission that you’d like to share? 

TL: I just want to encourage those who have received one to give it a nice look and enjoy it as much as I did! This piece was a fun break from my normal day-to-day work and a big thank you to PCA&D as always for thinking of me when they need something like this! 

You can see more of Le’s work on his website and at his Instagram feed, @tylerleartwork.