Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Okay, we have this brand direction. We're all agreed on where we want this to land. But how do we observe how the world is changing around us? How do we observe, especially in performance? Spaces? What is appropriate? What is meaningful? What is serving us? And what have we learned bringing performance spaces online? And so after that big design exploration, and after the design development that followed it, a lot of the partnership was really around. What does it mean to have a new brand and to launch a new brand in a new world sensitively?

Blake Howard  0:50  
Everyone, Welcome to a change of brand, a show featuring behind the scenes stories of rebrand glory, drama or disaster. I'm your host, Blake Howard. So far this season, we've covered some large companies trying to grow and evolve their brand as their business changed like MasterCard, Starbucks, or kiya. But what about a place based brand that is smaller in size, yet culturally influential? Folklore has it that a pedestrian on 57th Street in Manhattan stopped and asked a stranger, could you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall? Yes, that stranger replied practice. I think that story sums up the reputation for Carnegie Hall pretty well. It's a place with an immense history of musical preeminence, the acoustics of the concert hall are quite remarkable. But more so the hall represents something bigger. It's a symbol of cultural influence for the city of New York, and the country and maybe even the world. With that esteemed status also comes a perception of exclusivity. So in 2018, leadership for the nonprofit organization set out to change that they wanted a brand that would be more inclusive and more modern yet honor the incredible history of the hall. Little did they know months into the project, they would be upstaged by a global pandemic that would shudder their doors for more than 12 months. For more context in history on Carnegie Hall and what led up to this 2021 Change of brand let's go to brand strategist Tracy Clark. For our brief in

Unknown Speaker  2:33  
Carnegie Hall, it needs no introduction. It's perhaps the venue for world class entertainment, having hosted hundreds of legendary acts from the Rolling Stones to Jay Z, Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan and plenty more, almost too many to name as the pride of New York City and renowned around the globe. The 130 year old music hall stands as a visual reminder of the Gilded Age and the power of performance like his eponymous venue steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, or Carnegie, if you've grown up outside the US, looms large in American folklore, a billionaire several times over by today's standards. Carnegie was also a philanthropist. In the last 18 years of his life, he donated almost all of his fortune that is nearly 90% to charities, foundations and universities. But in 1887, Andrew Carnegie and his new wife Louise Whitfield, were just two honeymooners aboard in New York ship bound for London. While on route the couple befriended Walter Damrosch, who was conductor and musical director of the symphony Society of New York, and the oratorios Society of New York. During the voyage, Damrosch sold the Carnegie's on his vision to build a new concert hall in Manhattan, and Andrew committed to funding the project. One state side, Carnegie put Damrosch his plan into action and bought parcels of land along New York's Seventh Avenue chief architect William Burnett Tuttle was hired to design the building, which was constructed between 1889 and 1891, and consisted of a six storey structure that has three performance spaces. Though Carnegie Hall was Tuttle's first ever concert hall design. He was instrumental in devising the venues legendary acoustics. Later in 1919, Tuttle would add large poster cases to Carnegie Hall's facade, and electrically lit stained glass canopies that would go on to inspire the brand in the future. Finally, in the spring of 1891, Carnegie Hall opened with a five day festival that drew attendees from the highest of the upper echelons of New York society. The opening night performance on May 5 saw horse drawn carriages lined up for a quarter mile and the main hall renamed stern Auditorium in 2006, was filled to capacity.

Unknown Speaker  4:57  
Fast forward to 1925 when now Louise Carnegie sold Carnegie family ownership to real estate developer Robert E. Simon. included in the sale was a clause mandating that Carnegie Hall continued operating as a performance venue for at least five years, or, if not, another performance venue would be erected in its place. Today, it's almost unthinkable to imagine Carnegie Hall being torn down, but by the 1950s. That was very nearly its fate. By then Robert Simon had died. And Carnegie Hall's operations were in the hands of his son, Robert E. Simon Jr, who served as vice president and Marie Wiseman, who was president the music industry was changing. The New York Philharmonic, which booked most of Carnegie Hall states was planning a move to Lincoln Center and the Academy of Dramatic Arts, which had occupied Carnegie Hall's basement Recital Hall had moved out in July 1956. The younger Simon sold Carnegie Hall inks entire stock to Glickman Corporation for $5 million. That commercial property developer had designs on demoing Carnegie Hall to make way for a 44 storey skyscraper, which would have cost $22 million to build, Glickman was unable to come up with the cash to build his skyscraper, and Simon Jr. started a fundraising campaign to save Carnegie Hall. Ultimately, it was decided that in order to truly preserve Carnegie Hall, the city government would need to get involved. Then Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. created a task force in 1960. And later that year, special legislation passed allowing the city of New York to purchase Carnegie Hall for $5 million. In turn, the city government leased the hall to Carnegie Hall Corporation, a nonprofit organization created to operate the venue. Though Carnegie Hall saw some deterioration over the continuing decades, there was no closer call than its proposed demolition in the 1950s. The 1970s and 80s saw additional preservation and renovation efforts and in 1991, Carnegie Hall's archives opened in commemoration of its centennial. Now as a designated national historic landmark and New York City landmark, Carnegie Hall is sure to stand for another century, and likely beyond it's Wild Music Institute is the training ground for the next generation of performers, offering educational and social impact programs to children, families, and the community at large at little or no cost. Menu tours and pre show access to the Rose museum give visitors an up close look at the hall behind the scenes and 24/7. webcasts and broadcasts bring Carnegie Hall to every corner of the world. With the aspirations and impact of Carnegie Hall's work shifting staff was ready for his visual identity to better support their inclusivity and accessibility goals. And for that they were ready for a change your brand.

Blake Howard  7:46  
Before the 2021 refresh the Carnegie Hall brand identity was not bad. But it was about what you would expect from a large arts based institution. Clean, sophisticated and slightly highbrow The logo was an all caps Sarah Ford marked with a thick red bar underlining the name, which I'm assuming represented a steel beam paying homage back to the Carnegie history. Or maybe that's just me, overanalyzing it. The brand mostly used a red with a lot of whitespace throughout their communications. It also used a sand Sarah Thin Red Sea for a shorthand symbol, which they would sometimes use for a large super graphic. The new system designed by champions out of New York City keeps the core red and white but also brings in a deep blue, a rose pink and a seasonal palate to the identity which I'm sure the in house team was very thankful for. The showstopper of the visual system, however, is a custom word Mark based on the historical stained glass poster cases on the exterior of the building. Similarly, they created a shorthand that ch symbol based on the calligraphy imprint from an original steel beam that was discovered during a 2016 renovation, clean layouts and animated type round out the lineup and give the brand a youthful yet classy feel. Be sure to see the change of brand for yourself at a change of brand.com. Just click on this episode and scroll down to see the breakdown. To get a peek behind the curtain on the creative process. I spoke with Jennifer keinen founding partner at champions design. She had a stint at pentagram working with Michael Beirut who we heard from on the MasterCard episode earlier this season. She co founded champions in 2010 with her longtime friend Bobby Martin, and since then she's designed identity systems for Ad Age Girl Scouts, the WNBA and has served as the design director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Before all of that, however, she had one serendipitous day in class at the school for visual arts.

Unknown Speaker  9:56  
It was just the luck of the draw that we ended up Seated on either side of a divider in the studio in the studio was a central part to the education. Everyone was expected to work in the studio. It was a really collaborative environment in a very professional environment. And very quickly, Bobby and I realized we had complementary skill sets. I was an English major, who came to design late and he was an illustrator, who was always the best designer in his class, so I could help him with language, and he could help me with design. And we just started to form some collaborative habits that have stayed with us since that fateful first day of school.

Blake Howard  10:37  
Jennifer's business partner, Bobby had previously worked with a marketing director named Sarah velocio. On a project for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the two worked well together and kept in touch. Several years later, Sarah got a new gig as the CMO at Carnegie Hall,

Unknown Speaker  10:53  
we started to hear more and more about what was happening at the hall, and had the fortunate opportunity to throw our hat in the ring, when it became clear that they needed to audit their brand, and figure out how it could help them prepare for the next 1020 30 years.

Blake Howard  11:11  
Was it a formal RFP and kind of a formal process or kind of casual or formal

Unknown Speaker  11:15  
process, I remember a gigantic board room, I remember meeting with executive director, Clyde Gillison, we were able to share our experience working with historical institutions. So a lot of our work, we like to say we work with brands that have a lot to lose. So brands that have a long tradition of visual history, a long tradition of serving a community, and being able to share that experience got them comfortable very fast with us. And we were we were fortunate enough to move ahead in the partnership, which gave us a lot of advantages to move into a partnership with someone that Bobby already had a shorthand with is very helpful.

Blake Howard  11:57  
Yeah, I could see that. I'm curious. What at that moment in time, what was your personal impression of Carnegie Hall?

Unknown Speaker  12:04  
Oh, man, Carnegie Hall is such a huge beacon for culture in America, it is the epitome of performance. It is epitome of shared experience, it is the height of so many people's career, that is a special night, there are so few places where you have a quintessential experience that everybody understands. But when you say I went to Carnegie Hall, everybody goes, Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And that is a heck of a brand brief. Oh, wow. That's a challenge in branding a space and explaining and experience is, wherever that brand goes, you want to have fidelity to the Oh, wow, wherever you experience it, not everybody lives in New York City, not everyone has the opportunity to walk by Carnegie Hall or to go to an event more than once a year or more than once in a lifetime. Some people never make it there. But if we can carry forth the feeling of the hall in the brand and the word mark and deliver just a tiny bit of that, Oh, wow. Then we've really given them a useful toolkit

Blake Howard  13:16  
was that the main challenge they brought you in to solve was to sort of bring that wow, into the modern day expression of the visual identity? Was there a larger business challenge or operational challenge at hand? What was the main problem you were brought in to solve?

Unknown Speaker  13:32  
What was incredible about this partnership is the humility that they entered into it with, and it's what we try to bring to all of our projects to is, I don't know what the problem is yet. So I know there's a problem. But let's be really methodical about defining it. Let's go in and take on this branding process holistically. It's not come in with any assumptions. So we brought them through our four step branding process, which is not brain surgery, or not terribly original. It's research strategy, design and implementation. We do it with all of our clients. And the reason we do it with all of our clients is because that is how you get the best outcome of the work. A brand has to live beyond our work as consultants, a brand has to live being implemented by several different people. And we need to sort of know what that culture is going to be like, we need to know what that brand history is we need to understand your visual archive. There's a lot of work that goes into just establishing the baseline foundation on which the Refresh is going to be built. And that's really what we did hand in hand with Carnegie Hall. We met with staff we met with audience members, we met with board members we met with ticket rippers we went deep with the archivist, our team spread out so that everybody went to at least one performance in every hall in every genre. It was just all A lot of experiential, a lot of discussion, a lot of desktop research going into building out a full research report that was then able to itemize the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead of us that we could then circulate for confirmation and conversation to go into strategy fully informed and agreed upon why we're doing this and what we needed to gain from the work when it was complete.

Blake Howard  15:27  
Champions was getting to work and conducting initial research, they toured the hall, talk to staff went backstage, rummaged up high in the rafters and the ring of lights, and even met with the halls archivists, all while hunting for design inspiration.

Unknown Speaker  15:43  
Every story is an opportunity to build a richer narrative and a more meaningful graphic design toolkit. I think there's no better case study in that. Then the monogram that we created for Carnegie Hall, so that C H came from an actual steel beam. When we were visiting Carnegie Hall, there is a little museum right to the side of the stern auditorium where during intermission you you mill around, you have your your water, you have your throat lozenge, coffee during the performance, and you observe the historical artifacts. And while we were milling about, we saw this Carnegie Steel beam embossed with the Carnegie name, and we're just wow, that is amazing lettering, that's beautiful typography. That's such a meaningful history. Those steel girders are what's holding up the building to this day. That's what allows the building to stand. And so to make that discovery, and to be able to bring that back into our design, exploration and into our design, development, and ultimately bring it into the modern age, or now the CH that was once on a steel beam is a CH that is the Twitter icon is just is meaningful, because the history of the place is meaningful to the experience of it now.

Blake Howard  17:09  
How did you go about defining sort of the brand from a strategy perspective, before you got into the creative? What were the anchors that were most important and true about the Carnegie Hall brand that you wanted to capture? Once you got into the creative? How did you kind of capture that from a strategy perspective?

Unknown Speaker  17:23  
That's a great question. We always develop what we call our strategic framework, before we go into design, exploration and development, and that strategic framework holds the who the what the how the why of a brand. But it also really holds the visual, what we call design drivers. So those are the words that we agree with the client will use to evaluate any design proposals so that we're not bringing personal preference into the boardroom. So that we're not bringing, we're not guessing, oh, I think this logo is gonna work best for that logo is going to work best we have our challenges and opportunities that we established and research. We have our design drivers and our brand characteristics that we defined during strategy. And those then become the filters for the project as a whole. And there's a whole matrix of them that I won't bore you with. But I think that one of the most powerful, and the most enduring that came out in the Carnegie Hall work is just magical. And it's not something that you would ever say publicly because like, like magical, like you're gonna walk run around being like, my tagline is magical. No, it's not something that is meant to work as a messaging vehicle. What it is really meant to work as is a tool for evaluation is to make sure that whatever we're doing is magical and as delivering that experience of magic, and that's what you get when you set foot into that place and feel that history and hear that music swirl and have that collective experience that we're all missing so much at this day and age after being quarantined for two years.

Blake Howard  19:10  
Did you present back some of that strategic framework to the Carnegie Hall team? And then how did they receive that? Were they like, yes, we're magical, or were they like, No, we're sophisticated. We're not magical, or, you know, was there like back and forth around that framework?

Unknown Speaker  19:26  
Yeah, always. And that's why there's never just one you have to have a series. It's like developing a personality we really study the business as if it's a person. And we want to it has to have multiple facets and the tension between the two is really where the excitement in the brand grows. Brands have the same psychology as a human. How are you comfortable talking about yourself? Are you ready to face up to where you are? So often people are like, Oh, I feel like I'm on my therapists couch and there's a reason why it's easier. do this work as a consultant when you're outside of it, and you're able to look in and you're able to engage in these conversations, but it only works if you listen and you value your partners because no one knows the brand better than the people who are in it every single day.

Blake Howard  20:14  
After some back and forth, they put a strategy framework in place that clearly captured the unique character of Carnegie Hall as a brand. Didn't Jennifer and her team started to translate those characteristics into visual directions. To ensure that everyone was singing from the same song sheet,

Unknown Speaker  20:32  
what we do is once we get to agreement on the brand character, and on the design drivers, then we do visual research around each of the design drivers. Because if I say the word bold, I know what I'm thinking. But if you say the word bold, I don't know what you're thinking. So what we do is we create a visual reference board so that we can both point to the same thing and say, we both mean this when we say bold, we both mean this, when we say exciting. We both mean this when we say. So we're able to agree on the visual expression of the words that we all just agreed to. And with that agreement, then we begin the design exploration because now we all have this shared point of reference that we're talking about. So we what we do is really just try our best to avoid that moment when your kid shows you a drawing, and you think it's an elephant, but it's actually a jelly bean. We just don't want to get to that that misinterpretation, we want to make sure we're both going into it, expecting an elephant and seeing an elephant on the other side.

Blake Howard  21:36  
After the strategy phase, the project went into design explorations where the champions team worked on a new logo, some new color, some new type, and some layout ideas for the identity. And this is a big part of their process. So important. In fact, they write it into their contracts that all decision makers be present, when they present this round of work, we all

Unknown Speaker  21:57  
have to be face to face, like we want to read your body language, we want to hear what you have to say we want everybody to have a shared experience of being exposed to this all at the same time together. Because so much of the project and of the decision making comes out of that first impression, that's really the most immediate, most authentic reaction, it's before your brain gets in there and starts messing everything up, it's before you second guess get second opinions, it's really that first visceral reaction that we find is so important to really understanding how everybody's feeling about our interpretation of the work. And so it's required, everybody that's a decision maker has to be in there. So it's a big exciting meeting. And I remember this particular meeting just ending on such a moment of excitement, because there was so much inspiration just living in the walls living on the walls at Carnegie Hall and to be able to see that expressed in design and to be able to see that expressed in a way that brought the branding into a much easier digital toolkit was just really exciting for everyone. And I had to look back on the work before our call today to remind myself even of like, what were the three design directions? And how did that go down. And the reason is because so many elements from all three of the design directions ended up in the final direction. So we were able to bring some lettering from the stained glass, we were able to bring some lettering, from a steel beam and also a pattern, we were able to look at dynamic images, there were so many different pieces that we were able to discuss with the team on that exploration day that ultimately found their way into the final expression of the brand that it all just really lives together and our collective memory.

Blake Howard  23:54  
Yeah, I'm curious to get your take on that. And I'm sure that happens with your clients all the time. It almost has become this like, Oh, they're gonna Frankenstein it you know, it's like the designers sort of mantra and going into a situation where there are options. Sometimes it totally works. Sometimes you can pull the parts together. And then sometimes it's the a horse designed by committee as a camel, you know, sometimes there's the Frankenstein, how did you guide Carnegie Hall? In a moment like that? Did you give some Hey, I think we could maybe pull this together or was it like, okay, good to get your reactions to all of these different directions? Let us now go work on it. See if we can pull it together. How did you respond when they were really liking everything they saw?

Unknown Speaker  24:38  
Our processes face, like we are our processes basic basic research, strategy, design implementation, where it has helped us through the years and the way that it has produced the work that you see come out of champions is that we're so devoted to it. So in guiding our client, really all we're doing is going back To the strategic framework, going back to the agreed upon opportunities and challenges, and asking, Okay, if we go in this visual direction, which of our opportunities are we going to really take advantage of which opportunities do we miss, which of these visual directions are really delivering on the strategy that we've agreed upon. So it's not bringing our bias about which will be like the best into the discussion or even trying to guide them to certain decisions. They're just trying to remind them of what got us to these decisions. Because every design direction, will deliver different business results will deliver different experiences for your audience. And so what we really need our clients to be doing is to be thinking about their audience and what their audience needs most and choosing the visual direction that gives them what they need.

Blake Howard  25:53  
Okay, so after you presented that initial work, I would imagine you and others from champions went back to bring together kind of, you know, the best parts of the three different directions, maybe walk us through what happened after that initial design meeting,

Unknown Speaker  26:07  
a pandemic.

Blake Howard  26:12  
Okay, when we come back, we hear more from Jennifer about the big pandemic pause and all of its complexity for the rebrand process. All of that more after the break.

Unknown Speaker  26:26  
Hey, everyone, I want to take a quick minute and give a hat tip to match stick. It's where I work, and it's our producing partner. For this show, we specialize in helping brands elevate their identity to the next level. If you need help clarifying your message or standing out in the market, be sure to visit us@matchstick.com That's ma tchstic.com. Oh, and one more quick thing. If you're a fellow brand nerd like me, and you're enjoying this series so far, be sure to tell a friend or leave us a review. Okay, back to the show.

Blake Howard  27:02  
Okay, Jennifer in the Champions team have presented the first round of design and the client loved it. But as they went into additional work, COVID happened, which we will get to in just a minute. But first, I want to jump back to the big design explorations meeting, going into a presentation where decision makers must be present. And you're asking for their blink reactions has to be nerve wracking. After days, weeks or months of creative work, it all comes down to this moment. What if the audience is disappointed? What if they don't like it? What if you forget a line or sing off tune? Wait a minute, that's performing arts but it's kind of related. And I was curious, how does Jennifer handle the pressure of a moment like that? Just last

Unknown Speaker  27:51  
weekend was in New York City Marathon. And I had a friend who ran it for the first time and she was asking me like what do I do with all these nerves? Like how do you calm your nerves down before a marathon. And my my best advice for her or the thing that gets me through any performance challenge is like, once the pain starts, the nerves are gone. So the best part of the marathon is when you really settle into your pace and things start to hurt, then you're just beyond the nerves. And you're just really there for survival, and you're doing what you know how to do. And I think that it's the same thing in sort of that design exploration presentation, you just want to get to the feedback part, like you're so excited in the presentation, because it's like you have a captive audience, they got to listen to you talk. And you're just so excited about this work and you're able to share and you're able to perform, you're able to get it all out. But then you just really want to get into the feedback part because you want to get rid of the nerves. And you just want to hear and know, you just want to know where the project is going to go. Because usually after the design exploration meeting, the project then has its momentum. And it's really just going it's really just going and it's running itself. And it's so exciting to be in that moment that you just really just want to click in. And it's like it's like running a marathon. It's like racing in all of its best and worst ways where you just really click it and you find your stride and you take it through to the end of the implementation.

Blake Howard  29:26  
So picking back up the story just as COVID steals the show. They have a design direction in place, but now the spotlight is aimed elsewhere. Carnegie Hall closes its physical doors on March 13 2020 and is forced, like many live venues across the world to get creative to survive in a new landscape of digital only experiences. Without ticket sales, the source of their financial livelihood is at risk. Imagine how stressful that must have been for the staff in the league. leadership of the organization, how could they really move forward discussing something big picture like a rebrand while just trying to survive? Again? Here's Jennifer,

Unknown Speaker  30:10  
it was really just sort of figuring out, okay, we have this brand direction, we're all agreed on where we want this to land. But how do we observe how the world is changing around us? How do we observe, especially in performance spaces? What is appropriate? What is meaningful? What is serving us? And what have we learned bringing performance spaces online? And so after that big design, exploration, and after the design development that followed it, a lot of the partnership was really around, what does it mean to have a new brand and to launch a new brand in a new world? sensitively, because it's here, for an audience that has been away, it's here for staff that have been away, it's here through closings, it's here through loss, and it needs to bring us all back together and acknowledge hard times as well as exciting futures.

Blake Howard  31:10  
Did you get a sense that it was really hard for the Carnegie hall staff to continue in this sort of big picture dreaming brand identity conversation, when the reality of COVID was their halls were empty.

Unknown Speaker  31:25  
They are an amazing team. And just were showing up to do the work day in and day out. One of the stats that is just incredible coming out of this project is they make more than 2000 pieces of design every year. And that barely even counts digital, that's mostly a printed number. So we know that digital blows up exponentially. So this is an amazing team that shows up to do the work, and somehow figured out how to do work at that scale. And also participate wholeheartedly in a brand refresh process, which we all know is just on top of your day to day work. So you're putting out 2000 pieces a year. On top of that you're participating on a brand refresh. And then on top of that, you're trying to figure out how to survive in a pandemic. And so this is an amazing, talented, resilient team, who were amazing collaborators. And really just, I think, understood that they had the opportunity as a communications and marketing team to be active to be visible at a time that other members on the team could not be and so really just showed up to do the work as best they could and hard times.

Blake Howard  32:34  
You know, for you personally, what was really special about where you landed, you know, from a visual identity system perspective, before you really maybe got into some of the nitty gritty application of it. But just in general, like the color, the type, what was really special about where you landed,

Unknown Speaker  32:50  
I think to our team, what was most special about where we landed was Carnegie Hall's requirement that this design be for everyone. They wanted the brand to bring more people in and do more to deliver the power of music to more people. And so what they really tasked us with was to make sure that the design was accessible, that the design was inclusive, that the design was doing all it could to reach as many people in as many places as possible, and thereby bring music to as many people in as many places as possible, which only readable during a pandemic when physical space was so important to delivery and was now moving to digital space. So how can we get a brand into all of these homes to all these people that might never end up even coming into the hall? And really reinforce the choices we were making when it comes to scale of type color contrast? What can motion do realistically, when everyone needs to be able to engage with it? So we're asking a lot of really big questions about how to make design excellent, but also make design that didn't leave people behind?

Blake Howard  34:05  
What was the process like working with fear Jones, the type foundry and customizing different typefaces? Could you walk us through sort of what that process was like?

Unknown Speaker  34:15  
So we were able to work with Tobias for drones and his team on the the lettering of the word mark and Jesse Regan and his team on the lettering of the monogram. And a lot of that is based on previous experience with both of those teams knowing what they're really excellent at, and just getting out of the way honestly, like these are, these are geniuses the way that Carnegie Hall engages with, like musical prodigies, these are type prodigies. So to find the brand story to know what will be meaningful from the historic and graphic perspective. And then to turn those artifacts over to the the type nerds, the type geniuses and get get out of the way is really what we do best in those moments. is to leave it to the experts. And so bringing them the Tobias and his team, the reference of the stained glass and bringing Jesse, his team, the reference of the steel beam. And then building that back into the system was really exciting for us,

Blake Howard  35:15  
Jennifer and the Carnegie Hall team landed a new brand direction and then had to gear up for the rollout. This puts us at about the end of 2020, which was a very tenuous time period for those of us living in the United States. With COVID, the Black Lives Matter movement, and a very contentious presidential election looming in the fall,

Unknown Speaker  35:37  
the moment that the country was in very much affected the performance space itself, the doors couldn't open until it was safe to do so again. And the brand is an is an experiential brand of the brand is a place based brand. And so really understanding how to deliver a rebrand in sync with a physical space was really, really, really important. So I think that physicality informed a lot of the timing, and then the broader cultural requirements were anticipated very much by the brief, and their research in the strategy of inclusion and representation.

Blake Howard  36:18  
When the doors finally reopened in June of 2021. The new identity system was center stage. In addition to a press release and new collateral they also had this video explaining the change.

Unknown Speaker  36:34  
For 130 years, Carnegie Hall has invited passers by at 57th street and Seventh Avenue to glimpse the marquee names on the concert schedule. listings that have included some of the most legendary artists of all time. Inspired by the beautiful stained glass lettering in the top these poster cases, our new logo captures this magical history while guiding us into the future.

Unknown Speaker  37:01  
One of the most exciting things for us to see was the to see the Carnegie Hall flag fill up and to see the three sheets fit in so nicely underneath that stain glassed inspiration. It's a lot of work to launch a brand, I guess similar to our running analogy, like you don't have a lot of time to lift your head up and think about, oh, you know, how is this or that blog gonna respond? Or how is it sort of that Twitter criticism going to happen, is really just grinding through and making sure that every asset is ready to go, and that you're ready for the moment for your community to experience it. So this this one in particular was we're working right up until the last minute and not really spending too much time on the storytelling around it.

Blake Howard  37:46  
Jennifer and her team set out on a two year journey to update the identity for one of America's most prestigious venues. It was a challenge to keep the brand relevant, but to not let their work out shine the legacy and magic of a really special place. Basing the design work around to found artifacts at the physical location was a great solution. It sidesteps the criticism of design just being vain and attempting to look pretty, and anchors the brand back in something more substantial. Like history. They also worked through it to Multiplus time for the organization and the world and found a way to keep the project moving forward. By closely working with the Carnegie team to reflect on what was really happening. And being considerate in their approach. They ended up with a visual system that equipped the in house team for years to come. And for that I say bravo for Jennifer, she has a clear vision of success for the future of Carnegie Hall. The whole goal

Unknown Speaker  38:49  
is to deliver the magic of music to more people in more places. That's it. That's pretty Health's mission. And that's the mission of the brand is to get music to more people in more places. And if the brand can do that, then it was a success. That's our whole goal.

Blake Howard  39:05  
carrying the weight of change for a significant cultural institution comes with a lot of pressure to get it right. But Jennifer doesn't mind the limelight. That's what she's made for.

Unknown Speaker  39:15  
That's what we love to do. I think that's a lot of the reason why champions design exists is Bobby and I both had a lot of experience in the design industry. We both really fell in love with branding. And we both I really wanted to build an agency that could work in spaces like this meaningfully, like this is what we're purpose built to do is to work with brands that have these rich cultural histories or current cultural meanings of launching new brands with deep cultural intent and telling the stories or right way based on lived experience perspectives.

Blake Howard  39:59  
Okay, That is a wrap for the show today. But before we do close out there is one special post script. Fun fact, we've pronounced today's star of the show the brand as Carnegie. But this technically isn't correct. As all of my Scottish friends know, Andrew Carnegie was a Scotsman, and he would have pronounced his last name, Carnegie. Special thanks to Jennifer keinen for giving us a look behind the curtain to see more visuals from today's episode, head on over to a change of brand.com. And if you liked today's show, share it with a friend or leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Today's episode was edited by Matt Owen and fact checked by Jill Jefferies. Special thanks to Tracy Clark for the brief end and Rachel Jackson for today's artwork. I'm your host Blake Howard, signing off

Transcribed by https://otter.ai