Aperture Foundation Rebrand + Website
An elegant, expansive brand to reinvigorate a historic cultural institution
Bellweather's institution-wide, cross-platform relaunch gave a top cultural institution an unparalleled new brand. This overhaul increased engagement at every point of entry: website visits, magazine subscriptions, development support, and book sales. Every piece and channel, including Aperture’s annual benefit gala and their publications, is now unified with clean, impactful visuals.
Project Attributions and Credits:
- Non-Profit
- Branding
- Research + Strategy
- Website
- Emily Lessard, Chief Strategy Officer
- Louis Lee, Chief Creative Officer
- Sara Duell, Senior Designer
- Caitlin Clingman, Designer
- Qadir El-Amin, Designer
Aperture Foundation Rebrand + Website
An elegant, expansive brand to reinvigorate a historic cultural institution
Bellweather's institution-wide, cross-platform relaunch gave a top cultural institution an unparalleled new brand. This overhaul increased engagement at every point of entry: website visits, magazine subscriptions, development support, and book sales. Every piece and channel, including Aperture’s annual benefit gala and their publications, is now unified with clean, impactful visuals.
Disciplines
- Branding
- Research + Strategy
- Website
A flexible yet unified logomark
Our rebranding touched every part of the organization, including the logo, brand identity, ephemera, printed stationery, guidelines, and website. The Aperture rebranding is built from minimal black-and-white graphics, allowing images to shine. The logotype and use of the Futura typeface are directly inspired by the first issue of Aperture magazine in 1952.
Publication branding
The Aperture brand remains unified across its hundreds of photobooks. Aperture’s library can vary in size and content, but its visual brand system brings it all together.
Award-winning art books
Bellweather’s founding partners, Emily Lessard and Louis Less, have designed over twenty art books for Aperture since 2010, including the award-winning publications: Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style; The New York Times Magazine Photographs; Martin Parr’s Life’s A Beach and Coloring Book; Richard Mosse’s Infra; Photography Changes Everything; Mexican Portraits; and Go Photo!
Aperture 20|20
We designed the Aperture at 2020 sub-brand to accompany a new strategic plan. The brand identity is kinetic no matter what the medium.
A relaunched, responsive website
We relaunched and redesigned Aperture.org in 2011—making it one of the first cultural institutions to have a responsive website. We created several microsites within the rebrand: for the flagship Aperture magazine; the online store; The PhotoBook Review (we also created PBR’s brand); and the Aperture Blog.
Project Attributions and Credits:
- Non-Profit
- Emily Lessard, Chief Strategy Officer
- Louis Lee, Chief Creative Officer
- Sara Duell, Senior Designer
- Caitlin Clingman, Designer
- Qadir El-Amin, Designer
