Dear Friend,
We had a wonderful concert last Saturday, and we don't have another one for a couple more weeks, so I thought I would devote this week's update to a hot topic on everyone's mind:
What's up with the Chamber Music Society's new logo?
First, a little background...
When the newly-formed Chamber Music Society of Detroit presented its first public concerts at the Detroit Institute of Arts in April 1945, there was no logo on the concert program. In fact, the name "Chamber Music Society of Detroit" wasn't even on the program cover: the "society" was the newly-formed legal entity that presented its first "Chamber Music Festival" in three concerts that spring, with Dr. Karl Haas as society president and pianist on one of the concerts. Some of you will remember the re-enactment of this festival setting last January, when we presented the Aeolus Quartet in a special subscriber commemorative concert in the largely-unchanged DIA Lecture Hall.
It wasn't until the Tiny Konikow years that a Chamber Music Society of Detroit logo first appeared, using the abbreviation "CMS Detroit" in a groovy typeface that reminds me immediately of the artwork of Peter Max. (Yes, I'm that old.) Here it is, in the season brochure for 1988-89, our 45th season:
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(Notice the picture of the Beaux Arts Trio? That was cellist Peter Wiley's first appearance at the CMSD! At the time, I was a fourth-year doctoral student of the trio's pianist, Menahem Pressler, at Indiana University.)
It was in that same 45th season that our next logo made it's debut, seen below as it appeared in the program for the gala commemorating that season's final concert. Lois Beznos was the gala chair, and the logo presaged her many years of extraordinary leadership, first as board chair, and then as the CMSD's third president. This new version of the logo - highlighting "Chamber Music Society" while de-emphasizing "Detroit" - heralded the organization's move to the new Seligman Performing arts Center in Beverly Hills, more than ten years after the logo was first introduced.
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Fast forward 25 years. As the Chamber Music Society of Detroit approached its 70-year milestone, it was clear that our 45th Anniversary logo had run its course. There were two major reasons for this: first, the logo could only be displayed in a single "landscape" format, while rising costs of print advertising and rapidly evolving digital media required a logo that could register with audiences in multiple formats, including some very small. Second, the de-emphasis of Detroit in the logo (almost microscopic in smaller iterations) ran counter to our important effort to re-introduce ourselves to the city of our founding, and to expand our work across the Metro Detroit region. So in an effort to be as flexible as possible, we came up with a graphic image ourselves that placed the shape of a violin top hole inside a two-color rectangle. Our graphic artist came up with the rest, with versions in a variety of formats.
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That brings us to our current logo - introduced for the first time on the cover of the program at our 75th Season Grand Finale Concert in Orchestra Hall last May. It was designed by our youngest board member, Flint native Paris Dean, a gifted designer and business consultant now living in Detroit. Operating on the KISS principle of "keep it simple stupid," it puts a simple box around "cm" followed by "detroit" - and nothing else! Like the program for our first-ever festival back in 1945, the "s" for society stays in the background making it all happen, and we focus instead on the "cm" for chamber music and "detroit" for Metro Detroit. It celebrates what we do and who we do it for - you!
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What makes this logo
really
fun is the box. It can be any color - or any photo - that resonates with whatever message the logo is accompanying.
For example:
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So whether we're highlighting an instrument, an ensemble, a partnering venue, a concert audience, a school audience, or if we're just goofing off with the staff, every logo now can tell a story about who we are and what we do.
If you have a great logo image idea of your own, just send me a photo 7 units tall by 10 units wide and we'll try it out!
No matter what the logo is, the mission of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit stays exactly the same:
to bring together inspired musicians and passionate listeners for extraordinary chamber music experiences.
Thank you for supporting that mission - we'll see you at the concerts!
Best,
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Steve Wogaman, President
Chamber Music Society of Detroit
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