How does one create and establish “place” within a community and also enforce the existing community? Could the brand identity respond to this challenge directly? In 2021 MassArt’s Director of Graduate Programming tapped Dan Vlahos Design as it sought to develop verbal and visual branding for a satellite gallery space in Boston’s SoWa neighborhood and cultural district. Working with MassArt, Dan Vlahos Design helped develop “MassArt x SoWa” as a typographic wordmark that builds upon and extends the existing MassArt logo and brand. Dan Vlahos design helped develop signage, brand standards and color options for the new space. The new “x” mark logotype signals both a destination and collaboration.
The MassArt x SoWa graduate gallery mission is to exhibit high quality work in a broad range of media from emerging and established artists in the MassArt community. The gallery features the thesis work of our Master of Fine Arts students and premier work from our graduate design programs, as well as curatorial projects, alumni exhibitions, student and faculty curated shows, and collaborative exhibitions with our community partners.
As the first independent state-supported public college of art and design in the nation, MassArt is committed to being part of the public conversation–to providing opportunities for entrepreneurial and socially engaged work. The gallery is designed to reflect MassArt’s commitment to diversity and to expanding the ways that MassArt provides access to arts education beyond the walls of our college.
Credits—
Brand Strategy and Creative Direction: Dan Vlahos
Graphic Design: Alex Barbosa
Press—
“MassArt has a new student gallery. It’s all the way over in SoWa.” The Boston Globe, 2021.
FILED IN: Brand Design
