Urban Art Network

Freelance Work | Logo Design | Print Design

The Urban Art Network is a network of independent Portland artist and serves as a resource promotion of the Portland art scene. They are most famous for their “First Thursday” events that take place in Downtown Portland every month and bring artists together with huge crowds of potential buyers. As the organization turned 20 years old, they approached me to design a fresh new logo, as well as a series of promotional postcards and a brochure as they made a big marketing push.

I worked with the client to refine several hand-drawn sketches to the final design shown. The design had to represent the entirety of the artist involved, which included painters, photographers, sculptures, jewelry makers, and more. We opted for a simple design that used two symmetrical stylized letters - U and N - combined in a way that is representative of city buildings: the “urban” part of the brand. “Art” is represented by a lower-case a - one that is negatively subtracted by the shape of the UN to create a fairly simple shape that can exist on its own as a single-color graphic element. To further the “art” part of the name, the area of the eye in the letter “a” is shaped like a drop of paint, an idea that is further reinforced by the contrasting orange color that is also used to contrast the word “ART” in the logotype. The completed logo has a square and a more horizontal layout for various uses, as well as full-color and single color variants. Even the orange paint drop eye can be used as a stand-alone graphic element such as a stylized bullet point for print material.