Greater Chicago Food Depository Wall Installations
88 Brand Partners directed and executed the 2019 Greater Chicago Food Depository rebrand. The agency’s relationship with the Food Depository continued through mid-2024, and I had the opportunity to work with the brand for two years of the organizations’ partnership.
The largest, most involved project I worked on for GCFD was a suite of large-scale wall installations for the Food Depository’s massive facility in Chicago’s Archer Heights neighborhood.
The project involved multiple iterations, site visits, sourcing materials, and the walls’ production as well.
A (non-linear) history wall.
One of the more involved installations was a wall illustrating the Food Depository’s impressive, decades-long track record of positive change in the Chicagoland area. From the get-go we were tasked with not doing a timeline as those quickly become out of date after their installation. Several layouts were explored, but ultimately a design utilizing the Food Depository’s ‘blossom’ logo was selected.
Employee engagement.
The history wall’s sister installation was an interactive wall intended to foster a greater sense of community amongst GCFD’s employees. Dry-erase installations were installed along with dozens of creative prompts relating to the Food Depository’s mission.
Volunteer engagement.
Two more walls were designed for the GCFD’s volunteer orientation area. One was a simple photo backdrop area with food-related props and another was similar in execution to the employee engagement wall, featuring an array of grip-as-trips to hold handwritten notes from volunteers in response to creative prompts.
One really big map.
The last—and largest—installation was for a warehouse wall in the Food Depository’s volunteer packing area. We created an entire map of Chicago featuring its major neighborhoods and surrounding Cook County townships and cities. The goal was to give volunteers a chance to feel part of the Food Depository’s family and to add some life to an otherwise gray and fluorescent landscape.
