A New Brand for a New Era

Allow us to reintroduce ourselves.

For more than 30 years, we’ve been delivering rich experiences centered on culture, creativity, and connection throughout Chicago. We’re more than a festival—in fact, for more than a decade, we've been more than a festival, collaborating with local cultural, civic, and educational institutions to be a force of creative and intellectual exploration and growth in this city.

But our brand wasn’t reflecting that so well. So we developed a new one.

To us, this evolution feels quite natural. Brands aren’t static. They need to evolve just like the organizations they represent. And while what we do hasn’t changed, how we do it has. It was time for our look and our voice to catch up.

Don’t worry: our mission and values aren’t changing.

They’re just as true as they’ve always been. They’re also just as important. While we may express and embody them in new ways, we’ll never redefine them or leave them behind.

Take note: our name is getting a tune-up.

We are Chicago Humanities. For more than thirty years, we’ve produced engaging public humanities programming for broad public audiences. Some might say we’ve expansively redefined the humanities: through unique collaborations, illuminating experiences, and memorable moments.

We’ve been more than a festival for a while now. Yes, we host festivals, usually one in the spring and one in the fall. We also create gatherings, ambitious creative projects, and opportunities to connect outside of the spring and fall festivals. We present readings, conversations, receptions, screenings, interactive experiences, and performances. We present diverse events that express the full breadth of the humanities, all year round—so we tidied up our name to avoid any confusion.

Get excited: our new brand comes with more to experience and enjoy.

In this digitized world, in-person experiences are all the more meaningful, valuable, and essential. So we’re committed to gathering together in-person to share, reflect, and connect through our programming:

• We create spaces for people to share ideas, inspiration, and opportunities for intellectual growth.
• We host gatherings that entertain as much as they enrich and educate as much as they illuminate.
• We invite everyone to explore and celebrate new perspectives and ways of thinking.

More than a Logo

While logo marks often garner the most attention, a visual identity is a dynamic system—font, color, graphic motifs, and visual strategy—all coordinated to help us connect with you in a clear, vibrant voice from printed program guides to screens to the onsite experience at our programs.