Eddie Opara Designs Custom Typeface for Vineyard Theatre Identity
The NYC theater company launches a new identity by NB Studio with guest-designed typefaces.
Version of the new Vineyard Theatre logo featuring a custom typeface by Eddie Opara.
Vineyard Theatre is one of New York’s most prominent Off-Broadway theater companies, recognized for its innovative productions of contemporary works. Pentagram’s Eddie Opara has contributed a custom typeface for a new Vineyard Theatre rebrand by NB Studio that is always in flux. The ever-changing identity integrates a different font by a local designer into the logo for each new show.
Opara was invited to contribute to the project by NB founder and creative director Nick Finney. Timed to the theater’s 40th anniversary, the update reintroduces Vineyard Theatre as being “Fearlessly Made in New York,” and each of the 25 typefaces was created by an independent NYC designer or type foundry. In the new logo, “Vineyard” remains the same, while “Theatre” is switched out to represent different productions.
Opara’s typeface appears in the campaign for “This Land Was Made,” a new play by Tori Sampson set within the Black Power movement in Oakland in the late 1960s. The font amasses the word “Black” to form the individual letterforms, a visual correlation to the themes of community building and political mobilization.
Other contributing New York type designers include Tobias Frere-Jones, Sharp Type, Nick Sherman, and XYZ Type, and the system’s collection of fonts will continue to grow with future seasons.
Opara’s typeface appears in promotions for “This Land Was Made.”
A different font is integrated into the logo for each production.
The typeface forms letters from the word “Black.”
Opara worked on the project with NB’s Nick Finney and Reuben Alghali.
