The challenge

Tucson's Spanish mission church has long carried the region's Catholic imagery. Saint Augustine's restored ornament revealed a different hand—the painting, pattern and craftsmanship of its French founders.

The cathedral needed an identity drawn from its own building, and a system strong enough to hold every ministry under one roof without any of them drifting into a mark of its own.

The approach

Nothing was invented. We took the palette, the ornament and the silhouette directly from the cathedral, then wrote the rules that keep them whole.

The twin towers crown the wordmark. Seven colors come from the glass, stone, copper, stucco, textiles, gilding and iron. Three faces carry the type: one for display, one for reading, one for letterspaced capitals.

The mark and its family

Three lockups, chosen by the shape of the space, never by preference. Around them, three ornaments lifted from the building itself.

The Flaming Heart comes from the sanctuary ceiling—a devotion that reached the Sonoran desert from France by way of Santa Fe. The cross-fleury and small cross echo the French patterns stenciled into the exterior.

In the world