Seattle and Raleigh-Durham marketing, graphic and brand design studio Design Kompany

Design Kompany just got back from a trip to the East Coast, where we stopped by our alma mater, North Carolina State University.

This is us in front of the math building, Harrelson Hall.

We’re at the exact spot we were in 1994.

That’s when we were students, selling a bunch of t-shirts. I can’t believe I still have the old file with the design I drew:

That was Design Kompany’s first collaboration.

It’s fun to think back on how we kidded around about running our own business someday.

Almost 15 years later, Design Kompany’s totally real. We even have those big-screen Macintosh computers everyone expects to see when they visit a design studio.

Revisiting NCSU

We got really excited to be back on North Carolina State’s campus, more so than you might think because it’s such a cheesy thing to do.

But I heard they were going to tear down the math building, so we had to go. See, I’ve somehow gotten on the mailing list for NC State’s alumni magazine (how do people find their far flung alums?!). I had to snap a pic of this place because the news of it going away sort of distressed me.

This is it, Harrelson Hall:

I love two things about this building. First, its design. Harrelson Hall has a spiral stairwell that is really fantastic and fun to use. But I also have great memories here. This is where I learned Calculus of Three Variables!!! Thanks to the awesome math teachers I had at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, I got to skip Cal I and II to go right into this cool class my first semester at NC State. I LOVED it.

And since the math building is on N.C. State’s “brickyard,” we were directly opposite good ol’ D.H. Hill Library.

This was where I spent many a Friday night when I was a college student. Well, I may as well admit it. I spent a ton of Saturday nights here, too.

I heart D.H. Hill

D.H. Hill is N.C. State’s library. I rambled a bit a while back on how I love libraries. Well I do. And I sort of have a soft spot for my first library love.

But boy. It sure has changed.

Akira and I were floored when we saw these new computer stations at the library:

“Hey! Look at that,” he said.

I came over and I go, “Um, we could’a started DK from here if we’d had that kind of setup.”

And check out these chairs:

This is the first study area you have the option to go to when you walk in…

I used to go here my first year but then I really got annoyed with all the conversations happening around me. I didn’t know you ask people to study with you because you’re interested in them!!

Of course 99% of the time I was there on my own. I carted a bagful of books on stuff like fluid mechanics, microeconomics, and packing factors.

I hid out in the upper levels, “the stacks.”

My friends knew this, so that’s where they’d come and find me.