GrubStreet

While their organization outgrew their old headquarters—GrubStreet found they were also outgrowing their original branding and identity. For a creative organization with a quirky history, it was important to preserve aspects of the old identity moving forward, as it carried brand equity with students, investors and patrons. The lower-case “g” had to remain in the identity, all the better if it were incorporated in a circle.

Although the resulting solutions seems an obvious choice now, it was the result of an intensive and lengthy process which sought feedback and help from many “Grubbies” in their community.

The resulting custom-drawn lower case “g” as well as the seemingly random (but well-refined and balanced) “scribble” yields a refined look to move forward with while still retaining some of the “messy” roots of the organization that are so important to how they operate.

The refined word mark places emphasis on a modern “GrubStreet” (as opposed to Grub Street as two words), distances them from a similarly named organization in different industry. Combined with new typography standards, they are able to maintain a strong brand identity even when the in-house interns need to churn out some collateral pieces.

Check out their site at GrubStreet.org, and look for a completely new web presence later in 2013, designed by my former Hifinit partner Geoff House and developed by the great team at YetiHQ.