The Morton Arboretum

Communication program

The Morton Arboretum is a vital resource to the Chicago region – and the world. While known as a place of beauty delighting nearly 900,000 annual visitors, the Arboretum is also a place of science and global conservation, a place to learn and ensure the future of urban and wild forests. Guided by the passion of its founder, Joy Morton to “Plant trees,” the Arboretum’s impact is significant and has been transformative to the area as well as to tree science.

The Morton Arboretum capital campaignTo continue to achieve great things, the Arboretum asked Studio Blue to design the identity and communication program for its $63-million comprehensive campaign, Growing Brilliantly.

Studio Blue designed a series of case statements, including electronic versions, a stationery system, and video titles.

 

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The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Main case statementWe collaborated with photographer, Earl Richardson, to add to the Arboretum’s extensive image library. To convey the Growing Brilliantly theme, we sought to capture beautiful and interesting images of trees, allowing images to speak louder than words.

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Interior of main case statement
Part of the design process was a close collaboration with the client’s copywriter to engage the reader to go deeper with the context.

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Interior of main case statement

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Interior of main case statement
In our campaign work, we strive to make clear at every step of the way what the campaign stands for and why a potential donor should care enough to invest in the effort. Instead of long pages of text, we often pause the narrative with images (as shown previously) or large text.

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Interior of main case statement

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Interior of main case statement

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Campaign logoThe logo captures a bold attitude the Arboretum is working to reflect in a new, enterprise-wide brand identity. When we began the schematic work for the campaign, the new brand had not been finalized. Our iterative process appeared useful to the client, as we explored a range of expressions from the quiet to the bold.

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Individual case statement cover

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Individual case statement cover

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Individual case statement cover

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Individual case statement interior

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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Individual case statement interior

The Morton Arboretum
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Individual case statement interior

The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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The Morton Arboretum
Communication program
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