Jazz at Lincoln Center

Ten years ago Pentagram’s Paula Scher designed the graphic identity for Jazz at Lincoln Center, the country’s premier institution for jazz performance. Now Scher has revisited her classic identity with an update that riffs on the existing logo and expands it into custom typography for the institution.

The refreshed identity simplifies the original wordmark to make it more contemporary. The original identity accompanied Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 2004 move into its home at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle, several blocks away from Lincoln Center proper. Now that Jazz is recognized as a major cultural institution in its own right, the update clears away the “at Lincoln Center” and leaves the organization as exactly what it is: Jazz.

Jazz Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis and Creative Director Luis Bravo approached Scher earlier this year about refreshing the identity. The 2004 identity was designed to help put Jazz on the map at its new location and didn’t look like anything else at the time. The organization and identity are now well established with audiences, and Marsalis and Bravo felt the time was right for a change. About two years ago, Jazz began removing “at Lincoln Center” from its logo in promotional materials. (The full name is still used in written text and formal designations.)

“We had hoped that the organization would eventually ‘own’ Jazz and that any other explanation of the place would become unnecessary,” says Scher. “The new identity formalizes this arrangement, which was the original intent.”

The 2003 logo featured a circular disk that resembled a record for the “a” in Jazz, but with a square dot in the middle of the letter. When Scher was designing the logo, she had initially asked Marsalis to define jazz and he said that it was "syncopation."

"I asked what syncopation meant and Wynton said it's when you have a bunch of things in a row that are alike and one of them is off," says Scher. "That was the basis for the filled-in 'a.' The center was square because it was a square peg in a round hole."

The unique circular form became iconic over the years, and the refreshed identity has preserved and extended it by making the graphically heavy, round element a part of the identity system as a whole. The circular form has been expanded into a new typeface for the institution, as well as graphic patterns used in applications.

The original Jazz logo was designed in Eagle Light and accompanied by Neutraface 2 as the secondary font. For the new identity, Scher and her designers redrew the existing logo using Neutraface, rounded the square dot in the “a,” and made the letterforms slightly heavier. They then modified Neutraface 2 (originally designed by House Industries) to create a full alphabet with the circular forms of the round letters all filled in. The full alphabet has been digitized and kerned by the typeface designer Jeremy Mickel as a custom font for the institution. The new typeface is appropriately named Jelly Roll, after the legendary jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton. (Neutraface 2 continues to be used as a text font.)

In applications of the identity, the distinctive circular forms of the typography playfully punctuate the graphics like musical notes, creating a kind of visual rhythm that is unmistakably Jazz. The circles can be used in many different ways to become the basis of a flexible graphic system for the institution. The unique typography appears in Jazz promotions and on the website, and will eventually be applied to environmental graphics at the theater.

“Most identities need to be refreshed about every 7 to 10 years to keep them current,” says Scher, who has redesigned her landmark Public Theater logo three times in the past 19 years. “For Jazz, the small changes really contemporize it. While the adjustments are minor, they make all the difference.”

The new identity has been introduced in a colorful campaign designed by Luis Bravo for the 2013-2014 season. Brochures, advertisements and other promotions feature a series of lively, unguarded portraits of jazz musicians including Wynton Marsalis, Jane Monheit and Cécile McLorin Salvant. In the street campaign, the images are paired with the tagline “How you feelin,’” set in Jelly Roll. Engaging and accessible, the campaign conveys the vitality and spirit of Jazz as an institution.

This is the fourth time Scher and Bravo have worked together; they previously collaborated on identity programs at the Public Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Ballet.

Here, hot off the press—we just received it today—and presented in its entirety, is the full Jelly Roll alphabet drawn by Jeremy Mickel.

Jelly Roll font designed with Jeremy Mickel, adapted from House Industries' Neutraface 2.

2013-2014 season campaign designed by Luis Bravo, Maya Sariahmed, Mike Tully, Casey Walter, and Ho-Mui Wong at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Portrait photography by Whit Lane and Marylene Mey.