Saskatoon Public Library Rebrand
An international award winning rebrand for a cherished public institution
The Saskatoon Library needed a new identity to show that they were committed to change and promote public awareness to the progress. The approach to designing the logo was to show an abstracted iconography to help define that libraries are more than just the books. I was able to bridge both the future and the past by using book-like shapes to become pieces of a larger shape (a sunburst).
Ubuntu is used as the corporate typeface for budgetary reasons and also for being open-source – ideal for a public institution. It provides a modern look while also being easily obtained and adapted to the needs of the library. The colour palette included primary and secondary colour schemes to provide a wealth of options in making the new identity distinctive in all future deliveries.
Logo Development
The journey of developing this logo was remarkably smooth. There was buy-in from all major stakeholders throughout the process. The final choice, and subsequent delivery of the logo, was unanimous. Not bad for a concept sketch that was dubbed “circle of pants/pineapple slice” – not bad at all.
Added Value
The 100-year anniversary of the library was happening a year after the planned delivery of the new identity. A simple concept was developed in order to use the new logo in an iconic format to celebrate the event. The result was ordering the information in a dewey decimal layout and placing the icon on top – creating the logo candle!
The design was developed to be extremely versatile. Variations of the logo included: vertical, horizontal, extreme horizontal, and acronym versions. All variations of the logo include layouts that show branch names or department headings.
All work shown was done while employed at Tap Communications