Seattle and Raleigh-Durham marketing, graphic and brand design studio Design Kompany

Helvetica.

What a gorgeous font. It’s no wonder they made a movie about it* and that the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce picked Design Kompany’s Helvetica-based option for their final logo design. DK created an identity scheme that takes Helvetica by the cap of its H and breaks it apart.

Seriously. Graphic designer Akira Morita did a bunch of research, picking up old issues of Critique, +81, Graphotism, and Big from Half Price Books a couple of steps away from our office here in lower Capitol Hill. Akira also dug out typography books, classic and modern, from the dusty back shelves of home and office. These inspired the break-it-up and put-it-back-together process from which was born CHCC’s new logo design.

“I wanted to push the boundary of type a little for this project,” Akira says. “What I wanted to do, was to express the possibilities a new organization has to reach out to the community.”

Design Kompany is working on the stationery set design for the Capitol Hill Chamber. And Seattle’s social-change-focused web developer FuseIQ is working with Design Kompany to come up with a visual direction for CHCC’s new web site, www.caphillchamber.org.

Stay tuned.

*”Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.”–Helveticafilm.com

UPDATE: March 2008
Every time the #43 or #8 takes me past the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce’s office next to Twice Sold Tales on Broadway and John, I get to see the new logo on a piece of paper in their window.

A woman from my home state and I struck up conversation on the #43 one day, and when she asked what kind of stuff we do at Design Kompany, we happened to be at the stop, so I could just point.

Similar kind of thing happened at a forum DK attended on keeping the arts vibrant in Capitol Hill that the Chamber of Commerce sponsored. They had this nice big banner hanging behind a panel of people, all lit up. (The banner, not the people. Although there was quite a bit of heated controversy–some people got pretty ignited.) —DK

UPDATE: May 2008

I met someone from the Board of Directors the other day. And got to see how these cards printed out:

People around the neighborhood keep telling us they see the logo “everywhere” and that it’s “nice.” Thanks! —DK

Design Kompany: Branding for Creatives | Who we are | What we do

For more information about the Chamber of Commerce, see CapHillChamber.Org

UPDATE: October 2008

I went by the new office for the Capitol Hill Chamber, and here’s their new sign:

I met someone recently who found out we did this logo design. “I see that thing everywhere!” he said. It’s good to know the Capitol Hill Chamber is managing the brand by being consistent with their logo use. One of the things we were a little bugged about, though, was the way the logo on this sign gets “framed.”

In our style guide, we’d specified giving the logo lots of “air”, or visual “white space,” around it. In this case, I guess it would be red space. But the idea is that you give room for a logo to breathe by not crowding it in. When I used to do ad design for a small graphics studio, one rule was not to frame things. It’s just clutter. —DK