The Welcome Table
A collaborative social design project completed with St. James School of Philadelphia, The Welcome Table includes a flexible branding and environmental design system created to adapt to the school’s various needs. As a result of this project, a generous donation of $5,000 was made to St. James School shortly after completion.
AWARDS + FEATURES
Graphis, New Talent Annual 2022
St. James School is a faith-based Philadelphia middle school in the Episcopal tradition, committed to educating traditionally under-resourced students in a nurturing environment. During our time working with St. James, we developed an extensive and flexible branding system, including installation of a large-scale mural, for their recently established on-campus pastoral care center.
ADDITIONAL CREDITS
Kelly Holohan, Art Direction
Xi Cheng, Mingfei Shi, Pei-ju Shih, Shuang Wu, Collaborators
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Acting as Project Manager and Communications Liaison, I oversaw the spring 2020 partnership project with St. James School. After an initial meeting with school leadership in which we discussed any current or ongoing needs the school was experiencing, we brainstormed three initial concepts that we formally presented to the team of St. James employees working with us. Based on their feedback, we moved forward with our most extensive (and exciting) concept: to fully brand a recently established on-campus pastoral care center.
The design system focused on friendliness, approachability, and joyfulness, aiming to create a feeling of community while eliminating any stigma that could be associated with shopping at a food and clothing pantry. The foundation of the design is a set of over 150 icons, including everything from the classic Philly pretzel to the unexpected household tool; these icons represent all the items you might find in the space. Combining these icons with bright, youthful colors and classic typography choices like Futura and Mrs. Eaves allowed us to create an easily adaptable and timeless system that could be worked with by St. James School once the project had concluded — including a customizable logo — for the various types of events and fundraisers held within the space of The Welcome Table.
