The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) is a cornerstone of the St. Louis community and one of the nation’s most enduring orchestras. In 2025, the SLSO launched its 146th season with the reopening of its historic home, Powell Hall, following a major revitalization timed to the building’s centennial. Designed by Snøhetta, the new Jack C. Taylor Music Center integrates a 64,000-square-foot expansion with the restored concert hall, introducing an expanded lobby, improved backstage and educational facilities, and greater accessibility throughout. The transformation reflects the SLSO’s broader commitment to welcoming new audiences and making orchestral music more accessible to all.

To mark this new chapter, Pentagram collaborated on a comprehensive brand strategy and visual identity that embodies the SLSO’s artistic mission, celebrates its rich legacy, and positions the institution for the future. 

The renewal of Powell Hall offered an opportunity to reconsider not only how SLSO looks, but how it connects with audiences and expresses its place in the community. The challenge was to create a brand that could honor the orchestra’s distinguished history while signaling an open, dynamic, and inclusive future. As the SLSO expanded its physical home and broadened its programming, its identity needed to supoprt the full range of experiences it offers.

The Pentagram team worked closely on the project with SLSO leadership, including Marie-Hélène Bernard, President and CEO, and Unitey Kull, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, as well as the orchestra’s musicians, audiences, and stakeholders. Together, they explored what makes the SLSO distinctive and how its brand could communicate the energy, emotion, and collective experience of live music.

“Our goal for the new brand identity was to match the energy and spirit of our institution with our visionary Snøhetta expansion while supporting new audience development,” says Bernard. “The brand fits who we are and captures the versatility of our institution.”

At the heart of the strategy is a simple idea: an orchestra is a shared experience that brings together performers, audiences, and the wider community in harmony for the one-of-a-kind experience of a live performance. This inspired the new brand line, “All Together Now.”

The identity translates this strategic mission into a design framework that captures the movement, rhythm, and emotion of music. The visual language centers on a gestural ribbon that is constantly moving and changing to form elegant new shapes, from the SLSO monogram to illustrations of musical instruments. The expressive lines evoke conducting patterns and musical notation. Their fluidity also echoes the graceful curves in the architecture of Snøhetta’s new expansion, creating a cohesive connection between the orchestra’s artistic and physical identity.

This powerful element is balanced by a new wordmark set in Frequency Serif, a custom typeface designed exclusively for the SLSO. The logotype can be paired with the monogram, stand on its own, or appear staggered in rhythmic arrangements that suggest the movement and cadence of music, and the interplay of instruments within an orchestra. “The dynamism, vibrancy, and flexibility of the new brand identity will evolve and grow with us,” says Bernard. “The illustrative element has endless potential.”

Designed to embrace new possibilities, the system also establishes a consistent visual voice across the SLSO’s wide-ranging programming and audience touchpoints, from seasonal campaigns and the SLSO website to signage throughout Powell Hall.

“The feedback from our community has been extraordinary—from musicians and board members to audiences and community partners who describe it as inspiring, uplifting, exciting, and engaging,” Bernard notes. “They love the movement and say it captures the emotion and spontaneity of the music.”