Making of Maintenance Culture
Creating Our Visual Identity
When we started Maintenance Culture we wanted a quickly recognizable visual identity for the project - something that communicates qualities of the work, catches the eye, and unifies materials that we create through the project. Abby Doyle worked with us to make our Maintenance Culture branding dreams come true.
Abby is the designer and owner behind ADoyle Designs. She brainstormed with us by taking from abstract concepts like sustainability, digital preservation, and creative works, and used them to develop the amazing logo, colors, and name for Maintenance Culture.
Abby created a branding guide for us so we can develop other materials, and she created a template for slides, fliers about our 2023 workshops, bookmarks, and other materials we can use to spread the word about Maintenance Culture.
Maintenance Culture Logo
Abby Doyle, Owner and Designer, ADoyle Designs
As a creator of complex, born-digital, creative works Abby is also part of our audience for Maintenance Culture - we want to help ensure that her creations remain accessible far into the future. So we wanted to know more from Abby about her creative process, and she graciously answered some questions for us.
How did you get from the abstract ideas about preserving born-digital, creative works to the name and visual identity for Maintenance Culture?
When I first heard about the project, I did a lot of learning and research to make sure I fully grasped the kind of work that Myriad was accomplishing. From there, brainstorming sessions with Frances and Annie helped push our ideas further - narrowing down what the project truly encompassed and what it did not. Through this process of research and elimination, we were able to fully flesh out what the design and name should encapsulate - which resulted in “Maintenance Culture: Sustaining Digital Creative Works.”
What did you use for inspiration for the logo, colors, and branding for Maintenance Culture?
Design is communication in its simplest form. Therefore, the design needed to quickly and efficiently convey what Maintenance Culture was about. I began to play around with different visual concepts of what art encompasses. As this concept developed, I realized that it also needed to represent continuing the life-cycle of art. The final logo starts with a paint stroke, coming around to end in pixels. The circular nature of the logo represents the life-cycle and transformation of art in all of its forms: whether it is going from paint to pixels, or pixels to paint.
The colors chosen were a vibrant pink and blue, blending into a purple in between. The colors for Maintenance Culture’s brand, parallel the palette of Myriad’s brand (pink and blue) but with their own unique shades. The purple is a colorful representation of the transition from one medium to the next.
Maintenance Culture Colors - named by Abby!
Maintenance Culture Colors in Action
We like how the visual identity for the grant helps quickly, visually communicate what the project is about. Are there other reasons that you think it’s important to have a strong visual identity for a project like this?
Strong visual identities are absolutely key to success. People both recognize and remember information that has colors and images, much faster than information without. When a brand is tied to a strong visual identity, people are more likely to interact with it, remember it and recognize it again.
You’re actually a part of our audience for Maintenance Culture! You’re a creator who makes complex, born-digital, creative works. What challenges have you encountered in accessing your past work, or ensuring that your current work will be accessible in the future?
I began in design with 3D modeling and rendering. A huge issue this medium encounters is backwards compatibility. With there being so many file types being imported and exported from multiple different programs, it is easy to lose any stage of the project upon returning a year later. It is not entirely uncommon to find that it would be faster to start a project over than to try to bring old files up to date.
Also, as the different programs update at different rates, certain programs can only accept older versions of file types - meaning that if you cannot use the older file or cannot save the file as the older version, you will not be able to successfully use the next stage of software. I spent a lot of time on forums troubleshooting and figuring out which file types can be used and where.
Lastly – what’s your favorite sandwich? We use this question at Myriad events for participants to get to know each other a bit, so let’s hear yours.
I am one of the world's only Quizno fans - I love their Turkey Bacon Ranch (toasted!)
Maintenance Culture has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.