Cleveland Natural History Museum Unveils Logo

From the Cleveland Museum of Natural History: The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has announced that Rebecca Santo, a senior illustration major at Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA), has created the winning design for a centennial logo for the Museum, as part of a student-competition collaboration between the two University Circle institutions.

The collaboration charged students in a graphic design class with envisioning and executing a logo that would serve as the institutional graphic identifier for the Museum during its upcoming centennial.

“I see remarkable talent in University Circle and wanted to take advantage of the amazing program at CIA,” says Sonia Winner, the Museum’s President and CEO. “The energy we see in University Circle is really because of these students. And this collaboration presented us with a wonderful opportunity to harness that energy as we approach our centennial celebration.”

“Our main institutional logo was designed by John Nottingham and John Spirk immediately after they graduated from CIA,” adds Winner. “So this collaboration was a perfect way to honor our history and our relationship with CIA while simultaneously looking forward.”

“As longtime neighbors in University Circle, the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History have a rich history of collaboration,” says Grafton Nunes, President and CEO of CIA. “I’m proud and gratified that for the occasion of its centennial, the Museum was able to turn to the expertise of CIA Graphic Design faculty and the energy of a new generation of designers for this special branding campaign.”

Under the instruction of CIA Chair of Graphic Design Greg Luvison, students in the class consulted with members of the Museum’s leadership, marketing, and design teams to learn the scope of the project. Work commenced in August and designs were presented to a Museum panel in October. In November, three finalists—senior illustration majors Rebecca Santo and Tingting Sha and junior interior architecture major Emily Dontenville—presented their designs to a panel made up of the Museum’s senior leadership team; representatives from the Museum’s Board of Directors; and the co-creators of the Museum’s permanent dinosaur logo, John Nottingham and John Spirk, Co-Presidents of Nottingham Spirk. Santo’s clean, elegant design was chosen as the competition winner and the Museum’s new centennial logo. All three finalists received a cash prize for their work.

“I was completely honored when I found out. It made me feel very proud to know that I can contribute to something here in our community,” says Santo. “It’s always exciting to get an opportunity to work with a real client, for a real project, that will actually be used. Once we graduate, we now have a little taste of what the real world will be. I think seeing that this [Museum] has been around for 100 years is a powerful statement itself.”

“I’m excited to see Rebecca’s work guide us into the next chapter as an institution,” adds Winner.

A key component of the project was the requirement to honor the Museum’s iconic dinosaur logo. The mark was designed in 1972 as one of the first projects undertaken by Cleveland-based industrial-design firm Nottingham Spirk, which had been founded that year by recent CIA graduates John Nottingham and John Spirk. The logo was inspired by the Museum’s famous “Happy” holotype specimen of Haplocanthosaurus delfsi, on display in the Kirtland Hall of Prehistoric Life.

“It was the year that we founded Nottingham Spirk in a garage in University Circle and we were excited to have the challenge,” recalls John Nottingham. “We set out to create an iconic image for the Museum that was both historical and contemporary.”

The Nottingham Spirk logo remains the Museum’s permanent logo, but will play a secondary role to Santo’s new design during the centennial celebration. The Museum will celebrate its centennial with new and renovated spaces, special exhibits and programs, and community events beginning in December 2020 in observance of the 100th anniversary of the institution’s founding. The celebration will close in June 2022 after marking the 100th anniversary of the Museum’s first opening its doors to the public.

This press release was produced by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The views expressed here are the author's own.