Fred Strebeck
Fine Arts

After a long hiatus from being a professional artist, curator, and arts council director based in Little Rock, Arkansas, Fred Strebeck sought to reenter the art world as a progenitor and sage of all things aesthetic. Originally from the New York City arts community, he planned to leverage his experience and insight to enable clients to make informed decisions about art selection and placement. The Design Office of John Murph assisted him in reintroducing himself to the marketplace.

As Fred Strebeck re-engaged in the arts community, he needed a strong brand that provided him distinction and credibility with potential clients. The brand needed to have an approachable, friendly feel that was unique to his process, while reassuring his audience of his considerable expertise.

Fred Strebeck's process centered on conversation. He built a rapport with his clients in order to form a profile of their thoughts, preferences, and aspirations. These relationships set the stage for collaborations in which he shared insight and education, guiding his clients towards the perfect selection for both commercial and domestic contexts. For individuals hoping to make informed choices about their personal expression through interior design, he was an invaluable confidant.

The Design Office of John Murph sought to leverage this principle of conversation and collaboration as a way to visualize Fred Strebeck's approach. The goal was to create a brand that was a tangible illustration of his process.

The final brand started with one of the common denominators in the presentation of art: a frame. As the context for almost all paintings and art pieces, it could serve as a proxy for fine art as a concept.

The frame visual was repurposed as the linear design for overlapping speech bubbles. This illustrated the dialogue between Fred Strebeck and his clients, which serves as the core of his process.

The brand is intend to evoke his gregarious style of engagement. Fred's process draws his clients into deep conversations about their persona and sense of style, in order to inform his advice – tailored to best express their identity.

This core logo design was fleshed out into a full brand identity system with an accompanying color palette composed of warm, friendly hues and patterns derived of a potpourri of hand-drawn frames and interlocking speech bubbles.

The final brand provided Fred Strebeck with a distinct visual identity that not only encapsulated his process but insured much needed credibility with his client base.