In what was once a booming industrial area of north Omaha known for innovation, the Millwork Commons neighborhood is paying homage to the past by re-imaging the area as an innovation hub for tech, art, design, and community growth. The developing neighborhood will house independent businesses, apartments, and public spaces strengthened by inclusiveness. With an eye toward building a distinguishing brand for the neighborhood, the lead developers from Black Dog Management approached us to help craft a brand that was vibrant yet flexible enough to partner with the incoming businesses.
Our engagement began by defining a brand vision for the neighborhood. After meeting with various stakeholders, we helped the team capture and articulate the brand pillars, direction, and vision for the neighborhood, successfully laying the foundation for a broad system Millwork Commons could grow with. From there, we crafted a versatile one-color wordmark that was adaptable for pairing with other partner logos, brand applications, and color variations from the neighborhood’s vibrant six-color palette.
This color palette soon provided inspiration for a few delightful conventions we designed and developed for the neighborhood’s website — a small information site that can grow as the neighborhood and its needs grow. With link hover state colors changing from link to link on a page and large color blocks displaying quickly on page load then fading, we were able to play with color without overwhelming a user visually.
Our work with Millwork Commons continues as the neighborhood grows as well, with new print and signage applications springing up alongside the new businesses and buildings.