Sasaki graphic designers create an unexpected, bold new identity for the historic Village of Oak Park
Village of Oak Park Place Branding
Bus station billboard shows the new branded campaign Sasaki's graphic design team developed for the Village of Oak Park
The Village of Oak Park, despite being only four square miles, is among the world’s most recognizable design and cultural destinations. As a destination neighborhood just outside of Chicago, Oak Park needed a new approach to communicating its brand as a community of choice for new generations.
Visitors from all over the world come to Oak Park to see the magnificent collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings as well as Ernest Hemingway’s childhood home. In recent years, a wave of young people and families have started to move there, so the Village partnered up with Sasaki to create a new civic brand that welcomes the diverse new audiences of Oak Park.
The result was a beautiful brand and vibrant branding campaign that reimagined the community’s heritage as a series of unexpected encounters. Visually intriguing, the identity is still flexible enough to speak to the many facets of this vibrant community.
The legacy of Oak Park natives Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway is part of the identity of this Chicago-area community. Yet these and other historical figures coexist with a renewed urban energy—diverse residents, hip entrepreneurs, and imaginative mixed-use developments. The new municipal brand—and environmental applications—fully honor Oak Park’s vitality: full of bold color and good humor.
