Faced with shrinking enrollments and increasing competition in the art education market, the Oregon College of Art and Craft was feeling enormous pressure to redefine their identity in an effort to stay relevant. With a centennial anniversary approaching, and a capital campaign underway, OCAC realized they needed to take stock of their school’s true meaning and mission over the past century, and turned to Ziba for help.
BRAND DNA
Radical CraftSTRATEGIC TARGET
The Modern CraftsmanTREND INSIGHT
Craft Thinking: Foundation for reinvention
School of craft(s).
Founded by Julia Hoffman in 1907, The Oregon College of Art and Craft had the benefit of a long history of exceptional craft education, but world attitudes toward craft had changed dramatically in that time. “Arts and Crafts,” once the name of a powerful aesthetic movement, had become laden with cultural baggage, evoking either an outdated style, or a narrow focus on a single medium. OCAC’s educational counterparts were increasingly distancing themselves from the term—California College of Art, for example, had recently dropped “Craft” from their name, and many other schools were modifying their curricula to indicate a similar shift in focus.
With no clear definition of their own identity, OCAC was faced with a challenge: to tell a cohesive story to students, potential employees, and educational peers. OCAC, in short, needed to define what they stand for today.
OCAC students and faculty have always been driven by the process of making. They seek a mastery of technique, media and materials that art schools seldom offer. While it seemed that everyone was abandoning craft, OCAC had a choice—they could choose to follow their peers, or they could boldly redefine craft for the modern world.
Modern craft is a radical way of thinking and making.
Ziba’s involvement began with an exploration of modern craft. Identifying iconic craftsmen of the modern era—designers like Issey Miyake, artists like Maya Lin, chefs like Thomas Keller and Alice Waters—we examined what craft meant in today’s world. Each of these radical craftsmen had first mastered a technique, and then used their foundational training and knowledge to experiment, eventually resulting in a reinvention of their field. Traditional craft, we soon realized, had evolved into a new way of thinking that we came to call Radical Craft, an approach that perfectly expressed the essence of OCAC. Now Radical Craft could be used as a filter, to refine OCAC’s brand and hone their offerings and delivery.
Purity and rigor.
With their promise defined, OCAC was now poised to use Radical Craft to influence curriculum, partnerships, initiatives, lectures and shows. Ziba began by creating a program plan for the rollout of new materials—business collateral, signage, printed matter, etc.—as well as community and event guidelines, and recommendations for future architectural planning. Elements of the plan were organized into short-, medium- and long-term timeframes, allowing OCAC to prioritize and focus their efforts to maximize impact.
Radical Craft also informed the development of a new brand language for the college, corresponding with the changes in collateral and physical environment. This language addressed everything from the photographic style and voice of the school’s publications to a new logo and logo application, with each element focusing on the clear expression of Radical Craft. OCAC’s original logotype had obvious roots in the Arts and Crafts era. With the new logo we took the purest, most fundamental form we could find—the circle—and used it as a basis for a new set of letterforms. Taking such a pared-down approach not only emphasized the purity and rigor of craft, but also opened up an array of options for application, with a logo easily reproduced in wood, metal and other workshop materials.
Each physical artifact delivered for the project was an act of Radical Craft. The Brand Guidelines book consisted of digitally printed pages interspersed with double-sided newsprint, printed by letterpress in a converted auto-body shop and hand-bound by OCAC students. Physical artifacts like these helped OCAC internalize and adopt their new visual language.
Success: New students, buildings, and educational platforms.
Following the brand rollout, enrollment for OCAC’s BFA and Studio School rose dramatically. Using Radical Craft as a guide, OCAC collaborated with Pacific Northwest College of Art to establish a joint MFA in Applied Craft and Design, creating an educational platform unique in the Pacific Northwest. With funding from the capital campaign, a new Drawing, Painting and Photography building constructed on campus gives physical form to this revolutionary take on a venerable discipline.