The illuminated OTC monogram above the main stage
09 / 10
Hensel Phelps is an employee-owned contractor founded in 1937, and the Old Timers Club is how they honor the people who stayed. This was a black-tie banquet for long-tenured employees , so the design brief wasn't festive, it was ceremonial. It needed to feel earned.
A room full of people with decades at one company doesn't need to be sold to. The palette stays black, brass and warm amber, and the monogram is a clean circular lockup with no ornament. The only thing that raises its voice is the light. The mark glows rather than shouts, and that's the difference between a party graphic and something that reads as an honor.
Finished
Installing it - thats me
Room full
O · T · C
Lit edgeA Hensel Phelps × OTC pattern backdrop for portraits, staged with an illuminated arch and brass-and-amber florals so photos taken against it still carried the event's palette.
Backdrop
With podium
Staged
DetailThe same monogram scaled to a brass table sign, so the mark that anchors the stage also sits at arm's length in front of every guest.
Table sign
Roommonogram, carried from a brass table sign to a lit stage piece holding an entire ballroom
The whole identity rests on one mark working at every size. A circular lockup survives that. It reads at six inches on a table and at six feet over a stage without redrawing, and the integrated lighting gives it presence in a dim room without adding a single graphic element.
I designed the stage piece and I installed it, which on a build like this is the same job. The photo of me on the ladder wiping the sign down isn't a glamour shot. It's just where the work actually ends.
