The Arts and Architecture Conservancy at Saint Peter’s Church
54th St and Lexington Av in Midtown Manhattan
A non-religious, non-profit organization promoting classical, folk, and jazz music, theatre, dance, and visual art, fostering community engagement, preserving modernist art and architecture, and ensuring a vibrant future for the landmark Saint Peter’s Church at Citicorp Center (1977).
The problem
The Arts and Architecture Conservancy is widely recognized for honoring the life and legacy of jazz masters through its memorial programming. However, this project presented a different challenge: creating a visual identity for a special event that was neither a jazz memorial nor a Jazz Vespers service.
The organization needed a design approach that could distinguish these unique occasions while still feeling connected to Saint Peter’s established visual language and cultural legacy.
How we solved it
Rather than creating an entirely new visual system, we looked within the existing architectural and design language of Saint Peter’s for inspiration that could naturally align with the prominent Vignelli visual legacy associated with the space.
We found that inspiration in the geometric pattern embedded in the sanctuary cushions—an element quietly present in the everyday life of the community and shared across countless gatherings and events.
We digitized and adapted this pattern into a flexible visual identity system that could support special occasions outside the traditional memorial or Jazz Vespers formats.
The result was a visual language that felt both contemporary and deeply rooted in the physical and cultural identity of Saint Peter’s.
Photo credit: @idohavefomo