Refreshing a New York City icon

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, marks a new chapter with a refreshed brand identity. The Cathedral’s legacy as a welcoming community for inclusivity inspired us as we created a modern design system touching every aspect of their communications. The brand’s new campaign, It’s Your Cathedral, shares the new identity while inviting locals and visitors alike to enjoy its cultural and spiritual offerings.

Client

The Cathedral Church of St John the Divine

Project

Rebrand

A Cathedral for all

The Cathedral has a long-standing tradition of embracing progressive social causes and celebrating New York City’s culture and arts. This institution is a spiritual home, a base for vital social outreach initiatives, a vibrant cultural center, and an awe-inspiring architectural landmark. After working through a comprehensive brand audit with the strategists at Brand Federation, the Cathedral team asked us to develop a brand refresh that would reinforce the new strategy. The result is a consistent, legible, and impactful identity that effectively represents and resonates with all who enter the Cathedral.

Inspired from within

The team found site visits to the Cathedral to be a crucial point of inspiration during our design process. For example, the new wordmark is crafted from bronze letterforms in the historic Pilgrims’ Pavement—refined in collaboration with New York City type foundry Frere-Jones Type. Inspired by archival printings of The Book of Common Prayer, we added a versatile new typeface to complement the existing Divine font, itself a reference to The Gutenberg Bible. The new typeface created a more balanced system that allowed it to flourish in digital applications, while still honoring theological traditions. Architectural elements provided the foundation for the brand’s graphic shapes, offering a meaningful connection for those familiar with the Cathedral’s details while still conveying a sense of unity for newcomers. The color palette took cues from the Cathedral’s artwork and the changing hues of daylight filtering through the stained glass windows.

Working with Selman was really great. They came to us having done a lot of research before even arriving at the point of contacting us. We could really focus on the letterforms and making sure that all of this research was leveraged in a useful way.”

Fred Shallcross, Typeface Designer, Frere-Jones Type

Credits

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Expression on a spectrum

We knew the Cathedral’s marketing team needed an identity that was easy to execute within their existing systems, especially in Canva. Consequently, the new visual system needed to accommodate a wide range of design complexity, from straightforward layouts for daily social media content and service programs to sophisticated and visually complex designs for special events. Our work expands the Cathedral’s design capabilities and adds visual appeal even in routine applications and simpler layouts. We built the system to be flexible enough for every design need, from serious to joyful. The updated identity system is as welcoming and inspiring as the Cathedral itself.