Cade Museum
Signage & Exhibit
What we did
- Copywriting
- Design
- Environment
- Illustration
- Signage
When our friends at the Cade Museum were marching toward their grand opening, they approached Parisleaf to help them create new environmental graphics around and within the Museum’s gorgeous, Fibonacci-inspired building. We conceived and designed exterior signage, consulted on interior design, and designed a permanent exhibit that circles the second and third floors.
Our brief for the Cade’s exterior signage was threefold. Ensure visibility from several directions (no easy task with a round building!). Express the brand identity in a way that coheres seamlessly with the architecture. And compliment the chunky, oxidized aesthetic in the adjacent Depot Park.
To bring our ideas from concept to installation, we teamed up with Lex Dold, a local sculptor, furniture designer, and artist. Lex crafted a hero sign out of oxidized and sealed aluminum, which becomes backlit by shifting colors at night. The Cade’s two-part tagline adorns the west and east façades. And five color-drenched banners greet guests from the south.
As you walk inside and up the spiraling staircase, The Cade’s Mothers of Invention exhibit guides you through the history of invention in America. Grouped by five principles that shaped the course of innovation in our country, the exhibit includes three wall graphics and fourteen massive, curving panels that hang from the third floor.
The Cade’s brand identity bursts with whimsical energy, and this exhibit is no exception. Like the creative process, the exhibit wanders and poses questions, flying off into tangents and skirting right along the edge of total chaos. Things get downright silly at times. Easter eggs? You bet. See if you can spot them!
Since this exhibit’s completion, we’ve been thrilled to see the Cade team reuse our illustrations and collages in many ways from social media to t-shirts. What began as an exhibit has turned into a treasure trove of brand imagery.
To see more of our work with this wonder-sparking Museum, check out our case study for the Cade’s brand identity.