As the premier digital marketing agency for arts and culture in North America, Capacity is a longstanding partner for some of the most iconic institutions and organizations—from the largest performance halls, art museums, and production companies to smaller, regional, operations. Their comprehensive offerings span traditional marketing services and strategy into industry-leading insights, deeply-rooted community building and conferences, educational tools, and cutting-edge technological resources that allow their clients to meet the moment.

As technology changes, Capacity’s offering has grown and expanded. Pentagram partner Giorgia Lupi and team have designed a new identity and data visualization system that signals an intentional shift from Capacity’s roots as an upstart “digital-first” marketing agency to an established, industry-leading partner. A more sophisticated logo, visual, and typographic system elevates communications, while a dynamic suite of patterns, motion graphics, and color reinforces an ongoing commitment to the joy that audience members experience. Subtle graphic nods to seating charts, vintage promotional materials, and Art Deco typography connect a contemporary offering to a legacy of arts and culture that is both hardworking and grandiose.

Alongside the identity, Pentagram worked with the Capacity team on a deep strategic repositioning, voice and tone, and a new tagline: Promoting Collective Joy.

The success and rollout of Capacity’s new identity and strategy depended on the ability of their fully-remote team to act as champions and stewards. To ensure consistency and easy adoption, the Pentagram team designed a suite of bespoke tools, templates, and guidelines, equipping the Capacity team with a robust foundation for the work to come. At the core of this offering were two custom digital tools, designed to make the creation of Capacity’s signature patterns and data visualizations seamless, long lasting, and easily-adopted.

Intended for use by all staff members as a simple way to generate branded bar charts, donut charts, and other frequent-use chart types, the chart generator tool saves time for staff designers to focus on the creation of custom data visualization. As a part of the identity design, Team Lupi developed a robust data visualization platform, branded to work hand-in-hand alongside the new visual framework and typography principles.

Along with a series of in-depth conversations with the Capacity data team, Pentagram conducted a comprehensive audit of the firm’s existing datasets and reports, categorizing common use cases and core data needs across output and offerings. Lupi’s team then crafted a data philosophy with core principles tailored to these use cases, and extended the brand identity to data visualization through a cohesive visual framework that informs charts, tables, and everything in-between.

Together, the new brand marks a turning point, building on Capacity’s two decades of meaningful partnership and ushering the agency into its incumbent era.