Conceptualizing the 21st Century Workplace

What is a 21st Century Workplace? How do the Humanities fit into new work paradigms? How can these be succinctly distilled into an icon that adapts to this unknown landscape?” That is where we launched our design concept discussion. And then we added, “design something that will tell people who we are, and give us a distinctive look for that undefined, transformative concept—The Arts & Humanities in the 21st Century Workplace.” These were the challenges we posed to our design team—a tall order, indeed—and here is their answer.

Numbers and letters are symbols. Of themselves, they have little or no meaning, yet we put them together in endlessly dynamic compositions that mean everything. Letters and numbers mean the world to us—the past, the present and the future—and are the foundation of creative thought. Letters and numbers are the stuff of which civilizations are made… and without which, civilizations are lost.

our new logo

The design team chose the twenty-first century font Gotham, a typeface (appropriately) designed and released in the year 2000. According to Dmitri Siegel of The Morning News, the designer, Tobias Frere-Jones, was inspired by working-class letter forms and the typographic heritage of New York City. Like the concept of the Arts & Humanities in the 21st Century Workplace, its unassuming presence adds muscle to the world of work; Gotham works hard and communicates in a way that is both silent and powerful.

This returns us to our initial question: What does the world of work look like in the 21st century and how do the Arts and Humanities apply? These disciplines re-envision the workplace—making it better—and, in the long run, more productive. In essence, the Humanities have the ability to both frame and re-frame new economies and the spaces that make them flourish. Our logo must be reflective of that adaptability, showing how the Arts and Humanities affect and facilitate change in this workplace of the future. Thus, our team felt that in creating an overlay design, our logo would adapt to a multitude of ever-changing environments that would maximize its use and its ability to communicate a new frontier.

Watch for us—as we plan to be seen everywhere!