Project Overview
Saint Bartholomew's Church - affectionately known as St. Bart's - is an Episcopal Church located on Park Avenue and 51st Street in New York CIty. The Romanesque structure is unique among its peers. Ultimately, architectural style drove the visual strategy so much that the typography was lifted directly from the building facade.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
OCD - Orginal Champions of Design
Team
Designers: Jennifer Kinon, Bobby C. Martin Jr., David Balsamello
Typography: Jesse Ragan
Project Brief
We worked with church leadership to clearly articulate St. Bart's spirit. The outcome was "Everybody Needs a Place." St. Bart's warmly welcomes all people to participate freely and without judgement.
Further distilling the "brandstorm" to a design driver, We seized on the idea of tradition with counterpoint. It's about being beautiful but robust and always accessible. The identity system had to speak clearly in a minimum of three voices: historic, religious and public.
Project Innovation/Need
The name of the church had been carved out of stone in the facade when it was built in 1923. We knew that was what the logotype needed to be, so we designed a typeface based on that found typography. That logotype makes up the core of the new identity.
The Romanesque architecture, a style characterized by circles and arches, offered up nearly inexhaustible design inspiration. The church interior is made up of an eclectic mix of mosaics, stonework and stained glass windows that are stylistically disparate but relentlessly unified by the circle. They are everywhere. We took pictures of as many as we could find, then redrew them to build an archive of circular iconography that could be used throughout different communications.
The historic church typography was nicely complimented by Matthew Carter's robust new typeface Carter Sans. They work together to form the church voice and Carter Sans works on its own to form the public voice. Rector Bill Tully has a vision of turning the church into a public space open twenty-four-seven with a flame burning to welcome all comers.
Design Challenge
We worked with church leadership to clearly articulate St. Bart's spirit. The outcome was "Everybody Needs a Place." St. Bart's warmly welcomes all people to participate freely and without judgement.
Further distilling the "brandstorm" to a design driver, We seized on the idea of tradition with counterpoint. It's about being beautiful but robust and always accessible. The identity system had to speak clearly in a minimum of three voices: historic, religious and public.
Effectiveness
The congregation has been excited about the new identity and the strategy of Everybody Needs a Place helps them to embrace new members with open arms.
On top of it all, merchandise is flying off the shelves and city dwellers are taking notice.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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