SARAH KLASSEN

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PACIFIC NORTHWEST
QUILT & FIBER ARTS MUSEUM
2023
Timeline / 8 Weeks
Tools / Illustrator, Photoshop, Glyphs

The Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum (PNQFAM) is a small art museum located in La Conner, WA. Brought about by the local quilting community, PNQFAM strives to enrich and inspire, honor cultural traditions, and celebrate the creative spirit. This identity redesign aims to better represent the organization’s values and mission while appealing to a wider audience. The final solution invites new generations to take interest in the tradition and craft of quilting, while honoring the museum’s heritage.

Preserving history

This alternate brand mark pays homage to the historic Gaches Mansion, the 133 year old Victorian house the museum calls home.

Imparting generational knowledge

The primary mark consists of four patterned quarters, which symbolize the four permanent collections at the museum. Each pattern grows one degree smaller in scale to represent the knowledge and craft being passed down from generation to generation. This traditional quilt block is used throughout the brand system, each piece coming together to make a more impactful whole, signifying community and the process of fibres and textiles being pieced together to create finished artwork.

Adapting to the present

For use in large applications such as exhibition titles and social media announcements, I created a custom typeface using the same shapes from the main mark as my building blocks. The letterforms are based off of the second display typeface, VTC DuBois, so that at smaller sizes the type remains uniform. This dynamic custom type maintains the established brand patterns, but in a fresh and unexpected application that invites new audiences to take interest in the tradition of quilting.

How might we create a brand identity that invites new generations to take interest in the tradition and craft of quilting, while honoring the museum’s heritage?

I began this project with a visit to the museum itself. As someone with family ties to quilting, I was extremely moved by the exhibit and left feeling creatively inspired and connected to community. It was important to me that I was able to capture this energy in the refreshed brand identity, so I began creating a mind map to describe the experience.

Experiment, Intricate, Motif, Juxtapose, Utilitarian, Thrifty, Record, Community, Tradition, Folk, Cherish, and Storied were the words I felt most inspired by. As such, they guided the creation of my moodboard.

During the ideation phase, I sketched logos every day for a week. I explored three main ideas related to the history of quilting:

Craft as skill: Intricate details, interesting patterns, beauty
Craft as survival: Keeping warm in the winter, quilts as a record of hardship and story
Craft as legacy: Shared tradition passed down from generation to generation

In the end, I was most intrigued by the modular solutions. Exploring what those building blocks might look like led to my discovery of the font Harriet by Vocal Type Co which I expanded to create my final identity.