Cleveland Foundation
Definitely the pinnacle of my career so far is the ongoing (and confidential) rebranding of the Cleveland Foundation. Entering its 108th year in operation, the foundation remains the first and largest community foundation in the world. Its over $2.4B in assets are invested and the returns are given to the community annually as grants to non profits and community organizations that are aiming to fix complicated issues. They have long been seen as a marble castle on a hill that doles out money to their lucky friends, but they’ve been working very diligently to reposition themselves as a peer of the community, not as the experts in the room but as people with a different type of resource who can help community members work themselves and their neighbors up.
The only non-agency designer invited to the bidding process, I felt that it was important to create a unique and flexible team to work through the project. First, we sub-contracted Shelli Reeves, a story collector and storyteller whose family has lived in the community served by the foundation for generations. Her job was to collect stories and accounts of the work that community-members have been doing to fight systemic oppression and the myriad of issues that stem from it. We knew that the major donors to the foundation and its board would be heard no matter what team did the research and design for this project, but we felt it was very important that the Cleveland Foundation knows it’s joining an existing fight, not reinventing the wheel.
For the second phase, I took all of the research and data collection that Shelli did and folded it into my interviews throughout the organization, grantees, and other stakeholders. This all formed an 80-page findings document that lead an otherwise traditional rebrand. The mark was conceptualized and drawn to incorporate the clients’ many diverse needs, which in this case were the distinct and multi-faceted needs of hundreds of people. The work is still ongoing, but is set to launch next year.
Our last phase of the project employs artist activist Amanda D. King, who will take the narrative work that Shelli put together and fold in the visuals I’ve developed to create a series of performance and installation art around Cleveland, celebrating the new direction of the foundation and philanthropy itself.
This project has been challenging in some ways, but a really exciting opportunity. I have had to manage a team of different organizations and the different ways everyone works, and liaise with the client and stakeholders. For their new headquarters building, I am working on a complicated construction schedule (with another project manager, Arlene Watson), dealing with many different vendors and fabricators and moving parts to create an integrated brand experience throughout their building.
We have just wrapped a central phase of the project, which was the experiential and dimensional branding component of the scope. This includes signage, wayfinding, and environmental design for their new headquarters, and has used my skills as a spacial designer that would translate well for McKinnon & Harris into booth design for trade shows, showrooms, and retail spaces. This hasn’t been photographed properly yet, so please forgive the iPhone photos.
