Designing a Culturally Aware and Inclusive Identity
The Chicago Cultural Alliance is a consortium of community-based ethnic museums, cultural centers, and historical societies in Chicago. Its old logo didn’t accurately represent them and conveyed almost nothing of the organization’s passion and connection. They wanted a visual system that genuinely reflected their organization.
We worked closely with the leadership, board, and member museums to create a new visual identity.
Branding & Identity Design
We began this branding project with collaborative workshops to unite diverse voices and gather thoughts on the Chicago Cultural Alliance’s history and direction. From there, we conducted qualitative research to deepen our understanding. We also conducted a competitive analysis with organizations with similar structures and missions.
Here’s why working as a collaborative group is the best way to work: When we brought our small team-approved logo concept to the larger working group, they identified some cultural symbolism that made the logo look like it favored one group. Of course, we didn’t want that, so we iterated the design and ended up with a genuinely inclusive identity.
Web Design & Development
We also built a gorgeous and functional website. Because, well, they’re fantastic, and they needed one.
