Duluth Playhouse | Rebrand + 2022-23 Season

Challenge

We’ve had the pleasure of working with the Duluth Playhouse for a number of years now. But this year was extra special. With the vision to break away from being seen as just a small community theater, the need for a complete rebrand was born. The goal of the theatre’s rebrand was to showcase the organization as a top tier theatre in the region that pulls highly regarded talent from all over. The big challenge in this was bringing a level of sophistication to the brand while not alienating the local Duluth community the theatre was born out of.

In addition to rebrand, the Playhouse also needed help building out graphics for the 2022-’23 season’s various performances. The show (er, shows) must go on after all — rebrand or no rebrand!

Solution

Despite working with the Playhouse for the past several years, we didn’t skip our first step in the branding process. Discovery. We knew a lot about the Playhouse already, but to fully immerse ourselves in the organization, we dug even deeper into the organization history and who the theatre is today. After which, we worked with the Playhouse team to solidify their mission and vision.

Mission: To create opportunities in theatrical arts that educate, entertain, and engage the twin ports community.
Vision: Opening doors to theater to promote growth in one’s self and our neighbors.

We kept both at the forefront of our minds while concepting theatre rebrand designs. We ultimately landed on the logo you see below. It blends a modern/bold typeface, intersecting stage lights meant to resemble collaboration, and vibrant and expressive stage lighting colors.

We built out the logo in a number of flexible variation. Full horizontal, a stacked version, and an icon. Additional variations were also created using each of the Playhouse’s new brand colors: electric blue, encore red, and showtime teal.