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.
