Black Metropolis

Bronzeville sits just below the boundaries of downtown Chicago and is the first community designated in the notorious South Side. Known as a destination for many leaving Mississippi and other deep southern states, the Great Migration in the early 20th century brought millions of people to the north. Once known as a "Black Metropolis" to its residents, housing projects and segregation practices in after WWII led to the downfall of the once thriving and black owned area. More recently, the projects have been demolished and replaced with shining cultural centers and historic homes have been rebuilt and updated.

Bronzeville has a rich cultural history in music, writing, and black ownership. This project aims to give a visual identity to the area to rebuild the pride and sense of community of the neighborhood that is starting to reestablish itself as a great place to live in Chicago.

The name Bronzeville was originally penned by James J. Gentry, a local editor for the Chicago Bee in which he described the color of the overwhelming majority of the residents of the area. The name stuck after that.

St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton Jr. wrote a defining work of non-fiction based on surveys and interviews from African Americans in Chicago entitled Black Metropolis. This name has been historically attached to the area and makes for a defining tagline for the Bronzeville neighborhood.

Timeline

Chicago's timeline is storied. It is full of music legends, social unrest, and artistry. Bronzeville, while a subset of the city, shares the same history that helped define its population.

The first wave of the Great Migration started in 1916 and lasted until the Great Depression in 1930. This time period also marks the height of French inspired Art Deco design, which is prominant in Bronzeville's buildings and public monuments.

Logo Design

The logo is a simple word treatment that takes the ideas of art deco, but modernizes them with a more geometric and refined setting. The three lines symbolize the past, present, and future of the neighborhood and the cross bars on many of the letters tie the three time periods together. The uniform thickness of each stroke give the logo a modern feel.

The iconic logo serves as an emblem and a badge to represent the people of the area. The face is a stylized version of the gladiator on the Victory Monument at the center of the neighborhood. The four stars represent the four stars from the Chicago flag, but also act as a stand in for aspirations of the people—they look up to the stars. The typography for the shield is a sturdy sans serif with a bettter tonal weight to match the boldness of the human face. As an alternative, the decorative B can be substituted for the face for a purely typographic option.

Typography

Being a custom typeface for the mark of Bronzeville, the art deco design would not lend itself well to editorial use. With that in mind, a more flexible typeface that carried similar proportions would be better suited for use in communcation materials and longform text.

Two weights of Knockout by Hoefler & Co. serve as the main typefaces for promotional materials, since the combination of the two work well at different scales and for different types of information.

Color Palettes

The dark and rich color palette comes from the metal with which the neighborhood shares a name. It consists of a natural tone section as well as a patina version with brighter blues and grays.

Stationery

Buisinesses and cultural institutions will be able to use Bronzeville branded stationery to help promote the neighborhood. These will also function as a good design jumping off point for new businesses without a budget for custom design work. The designs come in either color palette and could be modified to meet the needs of the specific business.

Postage Stamp

A special stamp commemorates the new Bronzeville identity and will work well with the envelope and stationery set.

Community Board App and Walking Tour

The community board application allows residents of Bronzeville to keep up to date with the happenings and events in the neighborhood. Users can create an account giving them access to message boards, resident polls, and neighborhood services. Residents can post information about block parties, request babysitting services, or communicate about repairs needed to public spaces.

Guests of the area will be able to use the app without signing up to go on a self-guided walking tour, or request a resident to show them around. Guests can learn more about Bronzeville's historic sites and influential residents. The app serves as a system for public governance, where the residents can be directly involved in the revitalization of their neighborhood.

In order to promote the history and the landmarks of Bronzeville, visitors can download an application to their phone that guides them through a walking tour of the neighborhood. The app will have video clips of residents, music recordings of famous musicians who played in Bronzeville, and interactive media at monuments to see what the streets used to look like.

A particular feature of note is how people can stand in certain spots and have an augmented view of reality of what the houses and streets looked like in the heydey of Bronzville based on historic photos.

Merchandise

To show neighborhood pride, residents in Bronzeville can wear the new identity on shirts, hats, or place a door mat outside of their home or apartment. Residents will receive stickers they can put on their vehicles or windows to further promote the neighborhood. The more people come across the brand in the wild, the more they will get a sense of community from the area.