Meatpacking District

Base’s new identity for New York’s Meatpacking District reflects past and present.

“The new look has been rolled out over the past few weeks and centres around a word mark with contrasting bold and light typefaces. Base says the contrast ‘pays homage to the history and provenance of the district while capturing the renaissance currently taking place in the neighbourhood.’” — Rachael Steven, Creative Review

Typefaces

The typefaces are Platform, a recent exploration of basic geometric forms by Berton Hasebe, and Romana, a German design rooted in 19th-century Oldstyle type from France. The two faces are clear contrasts between modern and traditional, as well as mechanical and human. Romana was a good choice for the serif side because its high-waisted ‘G’ and long-legged ‘R’ are distinctive shapes, emphasizing the difference between hand-wrought letters and the cold, crude geometry of Platform.

Website

The Meatpacking District website is especially inventive with the split-personality identity. Each side is a column of content that scrolls independently. Webfont versions of Platform (from Commercial Type) and Romana (from Elsner+Flake) are used for headlines, nav, and pullquotes. The text is set in Arial.