A Name and Visual Identity for a Momentous Event

Branding for the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities

In 2016, the National Endowment for the Humanities hosted a four-day celebration of the 50th anniversary of the organization, inviting such luminaries as Salman Rushdie and Alice Waters to speak at the event.

In light of this significant milestone, Journey Group was asked to devise a name and visual identity for the conference.

A new name

Journey Group proposed a playful alteration of the word humanities: turning the first i into a solidus that separated the words human and ties.

Human/Ties became the name of the conference, and the division of the words became a visual metaphor that was carried throughout the event.

A brand style guide

To help the National Endowment for the Humanities team extend this new visual identity, Journey Group also created a brand style guide, complete with practical and applicable advice so that their designers could confidently carry the visual identity forward.

A versatile visual identity

The solidus in the conference name was a guiding design convention for the rest of the project.

That diagonal shape opened up to become a box, which could be filled with abstract, colorful patterns that represented the multifaceted energy of the humanities.

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