When RISD President John Maeda, Liisa Silander and the Media + Partners department decided to reinvent their alumni magazine, they decided to do it from the ground up. Renaming it RISD XYZ and shifting from a more traditional focus on the school to instead celebrate the accomplishments of its graduates, they knew they had to do something about the design too. While previous versions typically tasked three alumni with a section each, the resulting layout felt disjointed and made it tough to read.

Handpicking a few alums to pitch, they chose RISD alum Criswell Lappin to realize the new vision of the concept. Lappin—who in addition to running his own design consultancy Wellnow, has art directed the award-winning magazine Metropolis for the past decade—recently answered a few of our questions on how he and his crack team of fellow alums pulled off the fresh new design in just 10 weeks. Read on to learn more about some of his favorite designers, the project’s reality TV potential, and the beers it took to unwind when he was done.