Chicago History Museum Identity

This personal project re-imagines the Chicago History Museum’s (CHM) branding.

The proposed logo-mark brings together Chicago’s rivers, bridges, architecture, and iconic six-sided stars to build from the Museum’s current identity (building + flag) and self presentation (of so many exciting artifacts and conversations). A post-modern palette – a warm tomato red, dusty blue & navy, manila, salmon – lends itself to energetic, full-color posters as well as legible, dual-color designs.

A playful, geometric, grid system – in homage to Chicago’s grid – expands the vocabulary of the logo on business cards, posters, and postcards. Manipulation of the grid – different scales, clustered clipping-masks, icons, & alternate geographies – gives the system adaptability, dynamic compositions, and animation potential, while foregrounding the Museum’s ‘bridging’ and connection of Chicago cultures and histories.