ELLA designs Chicago Architecture Biennial graphic identity
![ELLA’s logotype](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/pLmEjZhjetmXUzsCZZQYMR-415-80.gif)
LA-based graphic design studio ELLA has created the identity for this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial. It’s colourful, layered and architectural – bringing together the curatorial vision, the architecture of Chicago and the many stories in between.
Inspired by Yesomi Umolu’s curatorial vision that takes a research-led approach driven by architecture in Chicago that performs as site for social action and advocacy, ELLA pulled out three guiding themes – multiplicity, unexpected connections, and open ways of thinking about architecture.
Text and images from the early stages of the design process, combined with the final logotype. The images are from an early research trip and the small flag shows the colour palette inspired by the Nationalities Maps from Hull-House Maps and Papers.
After spending time documenting parts of the city, visiting neighbourhoods and looking closely at architectural details, they decided to build the identity as an ‘open framework’. The structure would be built of signs, posters, classified ads and plaques found all around the city – their edges and shapes would become blocks, bricks, pathways and roads, making to the stories of Chicago.
RELATED STORY
As part of the research, ELLA came across a 1895 map charting the nationalities represented in the community of the Hull House settlement, Jane Addams and Florence Kelley in 1889. The settlement undertook social research of the community, and mapped it out, using a colour key to show the vast range of nationalities living there.
These colours – a bright, burnt orange; a deep petrol blue; a yokey yellow – would become the base palette for the identity, paying homage to the Hull-House social workers' legacy in Chicago and beyond. It recalls the diversity of backgrounds that the colours represent in the map, and that make up the city. The identity is a joyful celebration of the city.
Hull House Nationalities Map, 1985
Photograph from the early stage of the design process
INFORMATION
chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
Feel at home at Auberge, Château La Coste's new inn for culture lovers
Auberge La Coste sits at the heart of the art-filled estate, minutes away from the joyful town of Aix-en-Provence
By Harriet Thorpe Published
-
This Nova Lima apartment is a Brazilian family oasis with striking Minas Gerais views
A Nova Lima apartment designed by Jacobsen Arquitetura celebrates its long, natural Minas Gerais vistas
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
IM Pei's Everson Museum of Art gets a modern makeover
The East Wing of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY has been given a contemporary refresh by emerging Los Angeles studio MILLIØNS
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Black Modernism’s lesser-known, at-risk architecture gems gain a lifeline
Conserving Black Modernism announces vital funding to save and preserve overlooked and endangered buildings by African American architects and designers
By Bridget Downing Published
-
Step into the Blanton Museum of Art's reimagined public realm by Snøhetta in Austin
Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas is completed and reveals its reimagined public realm and plaza designed by Snøhetta
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
This New York Townhouse renovation is a lesson in contemporary minimalism
TenBerke’s carefully considered New York townhouse is the reimagining of a century-old Manhattan structure that reframes vertical living
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Visit The Frost House, a lesser-known modernist architecture marvel in Michigan City
The Frost House is a lesser-known midcentury architecture gem in Michigan City, Indiana; we took the tour as the property goes on the market
By Audrey Henderson Published
-
Broadway designer Scott Pask’s Arizona retreat is a scene-stealing discovery
Scott Pask invites us inside his Arizona retreat, nestled in the foothills overlooking Tucson – a place to reboot, recharge and commune with nature
By Michael Webb Published
-
Upstate New York retreat Ridge House evokes land art
Ridge House in upstate New York, the work of Brooklyn-based studio Worrell Yeung, is at one with the surrounding countryside
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Rafael de Cárdenas’ first ground-up project is a forever home with waterfront views and hidden treasures
Rafael de Cárdenas reveals his latest completed project in the Pacific Northwest, a family home of calming spaces that bleed the outside in, and ten years in the making
By Ellie Stathaki Published