A new contemporary art gallery in Chesterton, Indiana. Not exactly the first place you think of when you think about art. That's the point.
The challenge was two-fold. First, build a brand identity for a gallery that takes its art seriously without alienating the people who live there — the brand had to feel warm and grounded, not imported from Chelsea. Second, the gallery needs to pull people in from Chicago and the broader Indiana Dunes tourism circuit. It has to read as destination-worthy to someone scrolling from the city, and as a genuine neighborhood fixture to someone who lives ten minutes away.
The identity system anchors on a pair of interlocking frames — two overlapping rectangles with circles inside, like gallery walls holding work. The mark has a depth variant and a flat variant, which gives it range across print, signage, and digital without losing coherence.
The palette pulls from the landscape: navy, lake blue, sand, forest green, off-white. Aktiv Grotesk for type — clean and contemporary, enough warmth in the geometry to not feel clinical.
We went through multiple rounds of refinement on the brand system. Early directions explored different relationships between the frames, different color temperatures, different levels of formality. The final version sits in the right spot: it's a serious gallery that doesn't take itself too seriously.
The full brand kit includes icon, logo, and wordmark variants across six colorways, a trademark set, a brand book, and font licensing.
Brand identity is complete and in use. Website is in development. The groundwork is laid — when Gallery 1882 opens, the visual language is already established, consistent, and flexible enough to carry everything from exhibition catalogs to Instagram posts to wayfinding signage at the Dunes.
