Woody Guthrie Center by Toky

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CLIENT

A new Tul­sa, OK, insti­tu­tion which cel­e­brates Woody Gun­thrie’s life and lega­cy while edu­cat­ing new gen­er­a­tions about his role in Amer­i­can history.

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BRIEF

Devel­op a new brand iden­ti­ty that would cap­ture the com­plex spir­it of Woody Guthrie. The logo would be used inside a new muse­um devot­ed to his life and work, and would need to work with dis­plays and instal­la­tions already designed using bold fonts and dis­tressed textures.

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APPROACH

We cre­at­ed a num­ber of con­cepts, but always had a secret hope that one par­tic­u­lar logo would win out. It did. The dou­ble “o” in Woody became the base for Guthrie’s gui­tar, upon which he’d famous­ly hand-paint­ed “This machine kills fas­cists.” The mis­matched wood­type evoked sev­er­al things at once: Woody’s name, the era in which he lived, his folk idiom, and the Mid­west­ern arts and crafts tra­di­tions with­in which his art developed.

We turned to TOKY Branding + Design for the creation of a logo that would appropriately reflect the aesthetic of Woody Guthrie, as The Woody Guthrie Center itself does. We wanted a logo that conveyed Woody’s authenticity, musicality, and a sense of fun that would appeal to all ages. The vintage handbill letterpress style provided a great solution. The logo is unique, memorable, and it works extremely well across a variety of materials. — Stanton Doyle, Senior Program Officer of the George Kaiser Family Foundation