Visual Identity Designs
Collateral
Websites

A unique brand identity project for two closely related companies – Harold X Clarke Advisors and Elysian Key.

Harold X Clarke Advisors is a global sales and marketing advisory for the world’s most exclusive developments.

Elysian Key manages real estate portfolios and facilitates acquisitions for the world’s top .001% high-net-worth individuals.

The design challenge was to use company initials “HC” and “E” to create visually related yet distinct marks, where the symbols convey confidence and trust and have a subtle reference to architecture.

Visual Identity System
Brand Guidelines
Collateral

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe, her life, American modernism, and public engagement. It opened on July 17, 1997, eleven years after the artist’s death. It comprises multiple sites in two locations: Santa Fe and Abiquiu in New Mexico. The founding Santa Fe location includes Musem Galleries, Library and Archive, Research Center, and Education Annex for youth and public programming. In Abiquiu is the historic Georgia O’Keeffe’s Home and Studio and the Welcome. Georgia O’Keeffe’s additional home at the Ghost Ranch property is also part of the O’Keeffe Museum’s assets but is not open to the public.

As part of the 25th anniversary, GOKM undertook the Museum’s brand review process, including all visual communication materials.

The process started with an extensive audit of all visual assets, followed by an identity benchmarking study focusing on national and international competitors and peers in the field. This process established a solid foundation for the visual identity rebranding.

After exploring many new concepts, the Musem leadership recommended taking a more subtle approach of refreshing and upgrading the existing system.

The square container for the Museum’s wordmark has proven to be bold, impactful, and practical to apply. A new addition to the system was the introduction of a wireframe lockup. The new typography with shorter ascendants and descendants in the wordmark helped to resolve the spacial competition and make a more balanced feel.

Part of the process was the development of a new clear sub-branding structure. As GOKM operated in multiple locations bringing clarity to sub-brands related to locations vs. to Musem’s programs and activities was of high importance.

A comprehensive brand guidelines manual has been created to ensure brand consistency and proper use of the system. The final phase of the process was a series of presentations to the Musem staff to guarantee the new system would be understood and implemented correctly in the future.

Visual Identity System
Collateral

Thaden School is an independent secondary school in Bentonville, Arkansas, that opened its doors in Fall 2017. It was named in honor of Iris Louise McPhetridge Thaden (1905-1979), a proud Arkansan and one of the greatest aviators of her time. The school was in a need for a new visual identity that would capture its unique spirit and mission deeply committed to balance represented in many forms.

The resulting design is focused and uplifting, with a contemporary simplicity that evokes Thaden’s forward-thinking ethos. Resembling a wheel balancing on a string, the logo highlights the school’s desire to help students achieve balance by nurturing different facets of their intellect and character.

Visual identity

Visual identity for a privately owned company focused on translational science and early clinical development of therapies.

The logotype concept embraces Vitruvian principles of proportion, balance. The extended letter U as a visual accent underlines the perception of science.

Sage color was chosen for its calm, gentle, and sophisticated quality.

Visual Identity

The Santa Fe Opera is located 7 miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Equally known for the caliber of its productions and for its glorious setting unmatched anywhere in the world, the Santa Fe Opera provides an unforgettable experience for all visitors, first-time audiences, and opera-lovers alike. Audiences are treated to a grand 360-degree vista of the high desert and world-class artistry on stage. More than 2,000 performances of nearly 170 different operas have been given here, including 16 world premieres and over 40 American premieres. The present theatre was designed by Polshek Architects (now Ennead Architects) of New York and completed for the 1998 season.

The Santa Fe Opera identity redesign focused not just on the logotype but also on the entire visual system. The confusion about what the old icon represents and its irrelevant calligraphic quality kicked off the process. The historical evolution of identity was a useful reference point. The theater’s signature roofline celebrating the Santa Fe Opera as a destination gave inspiration to the new, simplified and notable version. A complete upgrade of the typography has followed. It was essential to move away from the locally overused Litos font and introduce something that would bring more sophistication and class. Benton Sans font family was the right choice for its various styles and full compatibility with the newly-implemented external signage system. The entire visual identity system was then incorporated into a comprehensive brand guidelines manual, followed by staff workshops to guarantee the new system’s correct implementation.

Visual Identity

The Parrish Art Museum is an art museum designed by Herzog & de Meuron Architects and located in Water Mill, New York, whereto it moved in 2012 from Southampton Village. The museum focuses extensively on artists’ work from the artist colony of the South and North Shore in Long Island. It was founded in 1897 and has grown into a major art museum with a permanent collection of more than 3,000 works ranging from early nineteenth-century landscape paintings through American Impressionism and into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including some well-known names such as Chuck Close, Dan Flavin, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, William Merritt Chase, and Fairfield Porter. The new architecture got inspiration from the unique atmosphere of light, water, and sky of the region and the legendary wood-frame artist studio barns of Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and others.

The brief for the identity project was unique. “to design a non-identity identity.” It meant creating a system that would be visible and noticeable yet not overpowering the art and the architecture. For the wordmark, I chose a “regular” typeface with a quiet personality. The actual lockup was a simple text line, a reference to the horizon, a demarcation between the sky and grass fields in that region. Later, a stacked version was introduced. It was not the lockup itself but the placement at the edge of the left top corner that brought an ownable characteristic to the system.

Visual identity
Collateral

SITElines Biennial is a six­-year commitment to a series of linked exhibitions with a focus on contemporary art and cultural production of the Americas. The exhibitions will take place in 2014, 2016, and 2018 and will be organized by a different team of curators, from locations throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Visual Identity

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, a Smithsonian museum devoted to modern and contemporary art, wanted to reassess its fundamental identity and to rethink how it could become an undisputed cultural leader in the twenty-first century.

A design challenge faced the Hirshhorn as a Smithsonian Institution museum. Any new wordmark for the Hirshhorn would have to give voice to its unique identity while living alongside the existing Smithsonian sunburst logo with which it would always be paired. A simple and striking design was devised, which incorporated a distinctive, bold typeface that the Hirshhorn could adopt as its own. Placed at a signature ninety-degree angle, the wordmark invited a fresh perspective. Flexibility was incorporated into the design, as it could be adapted for different purposes using bright, confident blocks of color. To ensure brand consistency throughout the institution, a branding guidelines book was also developed. 

This led to redesigned communications materials including the Museum’s quarterly magazine, website, and signage.

Visual identity system
Tagline
Collateral design

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was named “Ensemble of the Year” for 2004 by Musical America. After a two-year period of intense organizational stabilization, the Board and management were ready to embark upon a period of growth, looking to increase audiences and achieve public recognition as the leading period-instrument orchestra in America.

The orchestra’s long and esoteric name was a deterrent to much of the general public beyond the core audience. In response, a simplified name to PBO, which serves as the logo as well as an acronym for the tagline: “Passionate. Brilliant. Original.”  Contemporary type and design update the orchestra’s conservative image to fun, casual, and approachable. New photography conveys a sense of activity and excitement.

Visual identity system
Centennial Logotype
Centennial Advertising Campaign

The newly developed visual identity system incorporates the iconic facade of the old building along with visual references of both new structures. The east wing expansion by Marcel Breuer (1971) and the more recent West wing expansion by Rafael Viñoly (2012) celebrating their signature horizontal stripes.

Visual Identity System
Brand Guidelines
Website Consultation

Center Theatre Group is one of the leading theatre companies in the country, inviting over 650,000 people each year to experience the biggest and best of Broadway at the Ahmanson Theatre, timeless classics at the Mark Taper Forum, and the most innovative new works in the field at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. 

A key objective for the project was to shift Center Theatre Group from a hierarchical “umbrella brand”—presiding over its theatres—to one in which the identities of the Ahmanson, Taper, and Douglas enhance that of the organization overall… and vice versa.