Culture House Sunderland

Culture House Sunderland is a new public building on Keel Square in Sunderland, part of the Riverside Sunderland regeneration. It brings together a library, art and technology spaces, an immersion gallery, podcast studios, a rooftop sky garden and the National Centre for Creative Smart Cities, and the city wanted it to feel like a shared living room for everyone.

Sunderland City Council asked Studio Blackburn, its creative partner for more than ten years, for an identity that would make people proud of the place, feel at home in the building's architecture and work just as well on signs as on screens.

The logo is a C&H monogram that turns and clicks into the outline of a house. That house then does most of the work: it frames community photography, holds the wayfinding and guides animated type around its edges, like the line "the living room of the city" running around the roof.

The colours come from the building itself. The studio took the muted tones chosen for the finishes on each floor and turned up their intensity, so the yellow, red, blue and green feel native to the venue and still stand out on a phone screen. A black and white base keeps them in order.

The system runs across internal signs and lamp post banners, passes, tote bags and clothing, the website and social channels, with a warm, plain-spoken tone of voice that keeps it welcoming.