October 14, 2004 – May 2, 2005
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Liska + Associates: Steve Liska, chairman; Ann Marie Gray, content strategist; Deborah Schneider, president.
Photographed at the offices, Chicago
Liska + Associates
Graphic design firm Liska + Associates did the design, marketing, and branding for the Racine Art Museum, helping transform its image from that of a community art center to that of a world-class museum. Brad Lynch and Steve Liska have worked together in the past. Lynch designed both Liska's Chicago office and his apartment, and Liska designed Brininstool + Lynch's graphic identity. The Racine Art Museum is their largest collaboration to date.
We helped the museum and the board understand what the visitor experience would be—what people would walk away with. A lot of the graphic design has a strong architectural feel. It is very tied to the ideas in the building. It is very graphic, it is very bright, it is very strong, and it is very simple. The logo itself has two little lines that are tied to the reveals in the plastic façade, so there are a lot of things that are congruent to each other. We made sure that whatever design we did also had a reverence for craft. For example, the pocket folders are letter-pressed, because that is a craft. When they work together, architecture, branding, and all the different visual arts create a seamless and natural experience.—Steve Liska