SOUTH SIDE HOME MOVIE PROJECT
VISUAL IDENTITY AND WEBSITE




Client: University of Chicago,  Arts + Public Life, South Side Home Movie Project
Studio: Span
Design Direction: Nick Adam
Design: Nick Adam, Leah Wendzinski

Type Design: Nick Adam, Good Type

Web Development: Shawna O'Neal, Alex Brindley, John Pobojewski

Scope: Strategy, Identity Design, Website Design, Website Development, Lettering, Type Design, Motion Graphics, Collateral Design, Posters
Awards: STA 100, 2021 
The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is a film and cultural preservation project within the University of Chicago that is supported by Arts + Public Life and UChicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, & Culture. Through the five actions of collecting, preserving, digitizing, researching, and presenting, SSHMP advances the stories, culture, and legacy of Chicago’s South Side residents, in effect preserving history. These qualities position SSHMP as a work of social, spatial, and racial justice.

At Span I directed and designed the SSHMP’s visual identity and website to embrace characteristics that are integral to the medium of film — stacking, sequence, film-grain, dust, scratches, and blurs. By honoring what is true to the aesthetic of film, we are able to balance SSHMP’s desire for large, hi-res images with their, at times, lo-fi archive materials. The customized ‘I’ of the SSHMP logotype and custom brand typeface is inspired directly from the film leaders and perfs. The inky, rounded, sans serif typeface offers a retro feel in how it relates to sign-painted letterforms familiar to the streetscape of Chicago’s South Side.

Span’s work was in direct collaboration with SSHMP’s team and their cultural advisors. Founder and MacArthur Fellow Jacqueline Stewart laid the foundation for our work, Archivist Justin D. Williams led the project, and artist Amanda Williams gave us her signature Color(ed) Theory palette. Together we co-created an important cultural tool and asset for the film-making disciplines, the South Side community, our city, and far beyond.



At Span Nick Adam and Leah Wendzinski drew the SSHMP logo

Nick Adam drew and commissioned a customized version of the Byrd typeface from Good Type Foundry

Across the website, backgrounds are relational to the content of SSHMP’s archive

Artist, architect, and project advisor Amanda Williams supplied us with her signature color palette from Color(ed) Theory

Poster system to promote South Side Home Movie Project events

LET’S WORK TOGETHER

REACH OUT: NICK@SPAN.STUDIO


This website incudes the curriculum vitae and a portfolio of projects Nick Adam lead, directed, and/or designed.
Much of the work was collaboratively designed in the internationally-awarded design studios of Span, Thrist, and Firebelly.
Some of these projects are personal explorations and some can be found in the permentant collection of museusms.


︎ ENJOY THE DAY ︎ COPYRIGHT 2022 NICK ADAM ︎