In January of 2025, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels donated his extensive personal collection to the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at the suggestions of his friend Robert De Niro, who had previously gifted his collection to the Texas-based archive. Shortly after, Pentagram Austin, which had just completed a successful rebrand of the HRC, was tapped to develop the brand identity for a major exhibition of the recently gifted collection titled Live from New York, after the famous opening line of the iconic sketch comedy show. Additionally, the Pentagram team collaborated with guest curator Steve Wilson and his colleagues at the HRC to help shape the exhibition visitor's experience. 

The Harry Ransom Center, located on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, is a hidden gem. Housed in a massive brutalist building on the Southeast corner of UT’s “40-acres" the world-renowned humanities research library and museum maintain extensive cultural collections, including nearly 1 million books, 42 million manuscripts, 5 million photographs, and over 100,000 works of art.

Live from New York: The Lorne Michaels Collection, which ran from September 20, 2025, to March 22, 2026, explores the remarkable career of Lorne Michaels, from his early writing on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In to his pivotal role in shaping Saturday Night Live and beyond.

Key moments from SNL's history were highlighted in the exhibition, especially its role in reflecting and shaping societal discourse on politics, culture, and identity. The collection includes sketches, behind-the-scenes photos, annotated scripts, and rare materials and props including Will Ferrell’s “More” Cowbell, the actual “Dick in a Box” box, discarded cue cards and the torn-up photograph of the Pope shredded by Sinéad O’Connor at the end of her infamous SNL performance.

The exhibition also displays original costumes worn by memorable SNL characters like The Wild and Crazy Guys (Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd), The Church Lady (Dana Carvey), Matt Foley (Chris Farley) and Trump’s blonde wig worn by Alec Baldwin. Beyond SNL, the exhibit includes costumes and other materials from movies and TV shows Lorne produced like Kids in the Hall, 30 Rock, Mean Girls, Three Amigos, Wayne’s World and more.

Once the name of the exhibition was settled on, the first task for the Pentagram team was to design the primary identity for the show. The “Live from New York” part of the title inspired the team to look through Lorne’s collection for early “signs of life.” The team was inspired by a typewritten letter from SNL’s formative years that sported a vintage Saturday Night Live logo composed in a 70s era, faux-neon typeface. The idea of using a wordmark of neon lights as the brand identity for an exhibition featuring the founder of a late-night show broadcast from New York City– “Bright Lights, Big City”–seemed promising.

The design team revived the old letterhead type and began refining the letterforms until they landed on a modern, streamlined interpretation of the font. The exhibition’s main title “Live from New York” is composed larger in the new, faux-neon typeface and the descriptor, “The Lorne Michaels Collection” is set smaller in Avant Garde–a 70s era typeface with geometric letterforms compatible with the redrawn display type. The hierarchy emphasizes the neon wordmark which became the primary identifier for the collection. Eventually a custom alphabet was developed to be used graphically and animated throughout the exhibition space to identify sections and themes.

For over half of Saturday Night Live's 50 years of existence, the show's openers, designed and produced by Pentagram Partner Emily Oberman and team, have featured the SNL cast running around downtown Manhattan bathed in the glow of the neon lights of “the city that never sleeps.” Over time, the jazzy music and colorful, quick-cut cinematography of the SNL openers have become a recognizable part of the show’s unique visual brand. By analyzing the distinctive neon haze of the opening sequences, the design team developed a custom palette of neon-like colors and spot-lit gradations for the exhibition that were used for digital promotions, print collateral, banners and throughout the gallery space.

In addition to designing the signature typography and graphics for the exhibition, the design team weighed in on the visual storytelling, sequencing and pacing of the exhibition and conceived of some of the signature moments for the exhibit goer. The first thing a visitor encounters is a massive photograph mounted on the wall of SNL’s iconic Main Stage prompting selfie souvenirs as visitors enter and leave the exhibition. From there the visitor can go behind a theatrical, velvet curtain to watch excerpts from famous SNL skits over the years.

The exhibition is organized chronologically, starting with artifacts from Lorne’s pre-SNL period and gradually evolving to tell the story of the early, formative years of the Saturday Night Live concept. From there the story follows a graphic timeline that includes famous character costumes on mannequins paired with memorable quotes set in Avant Garde and photographs of hosts and musical guests looping on monitors. Towering over the center of the gallery space, projected on a large monolithic screen, is a fast-paced composition created by the design team of SNL’s Opening Montages.

In the end, Live from New York: The Lorne Michaels Collection exhibition broke all attendance records for the 50-year-old Harry Ransom Center. Pentagram Austin was proud to play a part in its success.