Tree Studios

Historic landmark Tree Studios was established in 1894 as an artists’ colony, home to many greats, such as painter Richard Florsheim, author Edgar Rice Burroughs, actors Peter Falk and Burgess Meredith, and sculptor John Storrs. Today, Tree Studios serves Chicago’s arts and cultural community as a space for arts-related businesses, as well as street-level shops and restaurants.

True story was enlisted to design a brand identity that would evoke Tree Studios’ origins while presenting it as a contemporary, fashionable workspace and shopping destination. For the logo, a variety of symbol and type lockups were explored. The solution was a simplified typographic approach – historic yet timeless. A supporting crest transformed the serifs of a classical “T” into the roots of a tree growing in the heart of the city.

An abstract representation of the building was drawn with simple geometric shapes fitting together like a puzzle. Those pieces could be pulled apart and frozen at different degrees of separation to achieve a variety of compositions – from a formal, bilateral silhouette, to an energetic texture – for use on banners and merchandise.