A Crosley view shapes a co-op-driven career

She first saw Crosley Tower as a kid walking around UC with her parents, who were both on faculty at the university, then later as a college student heading to class.

“I always thought the tower was kind of cute,” Stojanovic said. “I personified it as a kid. And when I started design school, it was basically in the center of my field of vision every day.”

Albeit Stojanovic’s path to design wasn’t straightforward. After graduating from Walnut Hills High School in 2015, she enrolled at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music to study ballet — while also double-majoring in mathematics. She danced professionally with the San Diego Ballet until the pandemic brought a sudden halt to the performing arts world.

“That was my window to try design,” she said. “I applied to DAAP, was accepted and, once I started, within the first week I thought, ‘Oh yeah, this is where I’m supposed to be.’”

DAAP’s cooperative education model requires five semesters of work experience, and Stojanovic approached it with intention: try everything.

“I was determined to do five different co-ops,” she said. “I wanted to experience different cities, different studio sizes, and different types of work before graduating.”

Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati: Stojanovic's first co-op placed her on P&G’s corporate brand design team in spring 2023.

“I didn’t work on the products, I worked on the P&G brand itself,” she said. “The team was really supportive, and I even got to work closely with the chief design officer.”

Rockwell Group, New York: Next came Rockwell Group, an architecture and interior design firm known for restaurant and hotel design, Broadway shows and museum exhibitions.

“I worked on exhibition graphics,” she said. “It was my first time living in New York, and I made it a point to network as much as I could.”

During that semester, she visited two studios in NYC that she admired: Order and Portrait, connections that later shaped her career. She applied for a co-op at Order and started in summer 2024..

Stojanovic credits much of her growth to DAAP faculty, particularly associate professor of design Emily Verba Fisher, with whom she took several classes. During a 2024 course, under the mentor’s tutelage, Stojanovic earned a prestigious “Young Ones” award from a global organization: the Type Directors Club (TDC). 

The honored work, and the many others Stojanovic’s achieved, said Verba Fisher, “is a shining example of how Juju weaves together her talent in music, sensitivity to motion from her dance background, computation skills and typographic acuity to create something stunning,” evidenced by her work being featured in the TDC’s annual publication and included in the organization’s traveling exhibition.

"She’s been an absolute joy to mentor and teach the past few years,” and Stojanovic’s devotion and enthusiasm for design, unbridled curiosity about both the future of the field and her future as an individual designer “have been constant reminders of why I love what I do,” Verba Fischer said.

Though her profile is shaped by global co-op experiences, the Crosley Tower type project continues to evolve alongside her education. Growing up in the neighborhood surrounding UC’s campus, she said the building was constant.

“I’d walk to class and think, it looks like a huge serif,” she said, adding that the more she talked about it “the more I realized that it resonated with people.’ Her project has expanded to include a text version created while in Germany, and even a new typeface, Crosley Rebar, inspired by the building’s internal steel structure.

“It’s much thinner, like the skeleton under the building,” she said.

UC students, professors and even strangers online have reached out to license the typeface, and she is now exploring her publishing options.

With graduation approaching, Stojanovic is exploring opportunities in New York or Berlin, ideally at small studios where she can continue the hands-on, collaborative work she found through DAAP co-op.

Juju Strojanovic presenting her Crosley Tower font to the Chicago Graphic Design Club. Photo/provided.