I work at the intersection of physical and digital spaces, designing everything from signage and websites to brands, typefaces, sculptures, environments, and print. I love experimentation and take on research-based passion projects that push my work in new directions. My approach blends typography, materiality, and concept-driven systems to create work that feels both thoughtful and impactful. In addition to my design work I also maintain an art practice where I am investigating playful typographic forms and the intersection of art, design, and architecture. 

Currently the Creative Design Lead at Once–Future Office

A graduate from The Cooper Union. 

Always looking to make exciting work with like-minded people. 

Contact

Press

Michael Maltzan Architecture, Studio Zewde, and Once-Future Office to overhaul Toledo Museum of Art’s galleries, The Architect's Newspaper, 2024

Built By New York featured in Oculus Magazine, 2024

Built By New York, a new exhibition for the Center for Architecture featured in The Architect's Newspaper, 2024

Galaxy Digital featured in Architectural Record, 2023

Galaxy Digital wins Best of the Year by Interior Design, 2023

Galaxy Digital wins NYC X DESIGN Interior Design Award for Tech Office

New York Public Library's Treasures exhibition features in The New York Times, 2021

Featured in: Takenobu Igarashi Pushed the Parameters of Typography with His Hand-drawn 3D Letterforms, AIGA Eye on Deisgn, 2020

Type High, Sculptural Letterforms By Winners of the Rhoda Lubalin Fellowship Opens in New York, It's Nice That 2018

The 3D Letterforms the Rhoda Lubalin Fellowship Winners Made are a Type Designer’s Dream, AIGA Eye On Design, 2018

Services

Art Direction
Branding
Campaign
Content Development
Custom Typefaces
Environmental Design
Illustration
Publications
Sculpture
Strategy
Signage and Wayfinding
User Experience 
Website Design

Awards

SEGD, Finalist in Branded Environments, 2024
Galaxy Digital

Graphis Design Annual Competition,
Gold in Exhibit Design, 2018

Core77 Design Awards, 2018

Rhoda Lubalin Fellowship, 2015

Mentorship

Mentor, AIGA Mentorship Program, 2025

Collaborators and Clients

AIANY/Center for Architecture
Brookyln Historical Society
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
De La Vega Designs
Campaign Finance Board, NYCVotes
Cooper Hewitt
Galaxy Digital
GreeNYC
Lever Architecture
Library of Congress
Lisa Stimpson
Mayor's Office for Climate and Environmental Justice, 
Marian Goodman Gallery
MoMA
Museum of Jewish Heritage
Michael Maltzan Architecture
Michael Angelo Prisco
Museum of the City of New York
New York Public Library
OMA

Once–Future Office
Parsons Healthy Materials Lab
Portland State University
The Portland Museum of Art
Princetion School of Architecture
Pure+Applied

Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Studio Gang
TASCHEN
Toledo Museum of Art
Young Projects
Vancouver Art Gallery

Site

Set in Sporting Grotesque and FT88
© 2025 Helen Sywalski Prisco
All rights reserved.

News + Process

Once–Future-Office–The-David-Rubenstien-Treehouse-at-Harvard-University_1

In Construction!

Establishing a different type of hub for convening, The David Rubenstien Treehouse at Harvard University with Studio Gang
Screenshot 2024-09-11 at 6.45.02 PM

New project launching soon!

An ongoing archive website dedicated to documenting mascaron ornaments wherever we find them
Image 6_Engagement
Street View

News! Michael Maltzan Architecture, Studio Zewde, and Once-Future Office to overhaul Toledo Museum of Art’s galleries 

"The reinstallation will provide a chronological journey through art history, guiding visitors from antiquity to the present day, tracing the cultural connections between geographies that the current galleries understate. The new presentation will showcase a fuller breadth of human cultural creativity, telling both a more accurate and inclusive history. The redesigned galleries will feature fresh updates to showcase the variety and quality of TMA’s collection, including innovative uses of technology." –Toledo Museum of Art

Top: Curators working in a workshop to arrange the collection chronologically

Bottom: Our site visit captured by the Google Street car

New!

De La Vega Designs

Identity/Website

Galaxy_Character-Set_1

Experimentation and Custimization

Renderings for custom deisnged 3D printed character set for Galaxy Digitla's office in NYC
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News! Once–Future will lead the signage and wayfinding visitor experience for this ambitious project in Portland, Maine.

Our team, lead by LEVER Architecture, has been selected to design the Portland Museum of Art’s $100 million campus expansion and unification project.
Buffalo AKG Site Visit_Once–Future Office
Once–Future Office site visit at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum
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Prototyping 

Signage and wayfinding for the Buffalo AKG Art Museum
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Behind the Scenes

Object review for the New York Public Library Treasures Exhibition
NYPLVisit
Michael-and-Helen-as-counterforms
Helen and Michael as counterforms for one of their sculptures for Type High
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Experimenting with Blender

3D Modeling for Print, Index Space Workshop
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