Late last year we finished the first phases of a major rebrand for the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia.
They approached us in 2008 to help them re-organise themselves under a new name, whilst finding a way to recognise the various initiatives that were being brought together.
This is how the various elements presented themselves before.
Although they wanted at one level to present themselves as a unified ‘Pew Center’, they still wanted to show that they worked across dance, exhibitions, arts fellowships, theatre, management, heritage and music, all within the Philadelphia area. And they wanted to let their initiatives sometimes still use their current names. What you might describe as a tricky brief.
After a lengthy design process, we started thinking of the centre and its constituent parts a little like ‘cards’ that we could shuffle and reorganize – the part you wanted to represent was simply the one ‘on top’. But, crucially, we allowed glimpses of the other initiatives to peek out behind the main card.
In terms of the main logo, it has three states, as below, depending on what level of detail the organisation wants to portray.
Then there are several other ‘states’ of the logo, where the elements re-arrange themselves to leave the initiative name on top, and a minimised Pew Center square.
We’ve developed several animations to help explain their new structure.
Here’s the animation for the whole centre.
And these are variants on the theme for exhibitions...
...and fellowships.
For the website the new identity becomes a live navigation device (see grabs below and the actual site is here).
Allied to the core identity idea, we’ve been designing and art directing a series of applications, from ram-punched brochures…
…to invites and concertina leaflets.
There’s signage for the head office, visual thoughts for DVD’s and films, even full sets of printed stationery.
The end of the year meant Christmas party invites and, unbeknownst to us, they gave out logo tattoos at the do. Now that’s a first.
