Span

Some institutions help make a city known to itself.

For more than fifty years, the Reader has done that work with fearless reporting, curiosity, and a point of view you can spot across the street.

Span was honored to have and trust us with the evolution of the identity for the Reader’s next chapter.

For this work, we started where the Reader started.
In the archives.

We studied decades of mastheads, retypes, and small typographic decisions that shaped one of Chicago’s most recognizable marks, which has enlivened the city’s landscape for generations.

The centerpiece of our work is a careful redraw of the original Reader wordmark. Letter by letter. Optically refined. Corrected for balance. Rebuilt to live everywhere the Reader lives now, across print, digital, social, street boxes, and merch, while staying true to its history.

Thank you to the Chicago Reader for the years that built this legacy. Special thanks to for the collaboration, and to for the behind-the-scenes photos.

More soon. A full case study is on the way.

The invited the team at Span to design works for the Great Ideas of Humanity exhibition.

This one is from on Howard Zinn
In progress and change

“You can’t stay neutral on a moving train”
Howard Zinn

Artist Statement from Kevin Moreland
Howard Zinn warns of the passive participation in the making of history with his metaphor of the barreling train. Inspired by satellite images of rail yards, Zinn’s metaphor is materialized through overlapping lines and cautionary yellow with an arching path disrupting the composition. Set in Tatsuro from .co , the type originates from the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and is reminiscent of the type often found on rail cars.

What is Great Ideas of Humanity?
John Massey, former Container Corporation of America (CCA) head of design, encouraged the Design Museum of Chicago (DMoC) to reimagine the Great Ideas of Western Man campaign. DMoC happily obliged. DMoC reprise, Great Ideas of Humanity, embraces the increasing globalization of our world and celebrates the resulting cross-pollination of ideas, philosophies, societies, and cultures.

Great Ideas of Humanity
From 1950–1975, Chicago-based Container Corporation of America ran a campaign heralded as one of the best in advertising history, Great Ideas of Western Man. The world has changed since 1975, but great ideas are timeless. This response is organized by the Design Museum of Chicago, celebrating the enduring power of ideas through design.

Recently at the studio we were asked by to submit work to the Great Ideas of Humanity exhibition.

Here, our responded to an Octavia Butler quote.

John Massey, former Container Corporation of America (CCA) head of design, encouraged the Design Museum of Chicago (DMoC) to reimagine the Great Ideas of Western Man campaign. DMoC happily obliged. DMoC reprise, Great Ideas of Humanity, embraces the increasing globalization of our world and celebrates the resulting cross-pollination of ideas, philosophies, societies, and cultures.

’s Artist Statement
Octavia Butler’s quote powerfully reflects the recurring cycles of civilization: “The past, for example, is filled with repeating cycles of strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity, empire and ashes.” This poster responds with bold typography shifting in and out of focus with time. These dualities are presented side by side, linked by a looping ampersand that suggests continuity and tension. The composition and color palette draw inspiration from Corita Kent, pairing a vibrant orange with its complementary blue.

“Of course, writing novels about the future doesn’t give me any special ability to foretell the future. But it does encourage me to use our past and present behaviors as guides to the kind of world we seem to be creating. The past, for example, is filled with repeating cycles of strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity, empire and ashes. To study history is to study humanity. And to try to foretell the future without studying history is like trying to learn to read without bothering to learn the alphabet.”
Octavia E. Butler

Great Ideas of Humanity
From 1950–1975, Chicago-based Container Corporation of America ran a campaign heralded as one of the best in advertising history, Great Ideas of Western Man. The world has changed since 1975, but great ideas are timeless. This response is organized by the Design Museum of Chicago, celebrating the enduring power of ideas through design.