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Photo of the Successful Failures exhibition title on the wall in another location, with different modular lockup.
Photos of successful failures t-shirts.
Full custom lettering / modular alphabet design.
Various Successful Failures logo lockups show how custom modular lettering creates variety.
Logos for Marz and other businesses involved in the Successful failures exhibition.
Custom lettering and typography for Successful Failures.
Photo of the Successful Failures exhibition title on the wall.
Full custom lettering / modular alphabet design.

Services

Lettering
Typography


Client

Public Media Institute
Ed Marszewski

Art Direction

Lou Capozzoli

Year

2021

Successful Failures: Three Decades of Lumpens and Radical Media was an exhibition hosted at the Chicago Cultural Center. It showcased an expansive blend of past, present, and future projects from thousands of contributors, spanning publications, programs, festivals, and more. Central to the show was its "living logotype," crafted in the spirit of the exhibit's collaborative ethos.

 

Each letter in "Successful Failures" was uniquely designed, with some derived from logos of featured initiatives and others created freely across various media. This dynamic font allowed the exhibition designer to experiment with different configurations on-site and in promotional materials, ensuring the logo seldom repeated.

The logo itself was designed to be a “Successful Failure” of sorts—not every permutation of letterforms worked perfectly, but each embodied the bold and fearless nature of the work it was designed to represent.

Successful Failures

More Work 👇

Animation of many gig poster designs.

Marketing | Creative Direction
South By Southwest Loop

Emoji monkey animation that flickers with X’s over the eyes.

Marketing | Creative Direction
The Dayton's Monkeys

Looping animation of a bus in Chicago driving back and forth

Branding | Illustration
The Fleet

POV of various graphics of Rivere cycling in the style of a Viewmaster toy.

Marketing | Branding | Creative Direction
Rivere of River North

An exterior image of 120 Broadway in Manhattan.

Branding | Lettering | Real Estate
120 Broadway Revival

A back-and-forth animation of an office building rendering transitioning from night to day.

Branding | Marketing | Creative Direction
LINK Creative Campaign

A flickering neon sign that says "It's Boogie Time."

Lettering | Neon | Beer
It's Boogie Time

A custom modular piece of letter that says "Succesfful Failures" flickering against a black background.

Lettering | Experimental
Successful Failures

An abstract, 3D custom piece of lettering featuring the letter M.

Experimental | 3D | Lettering
36 Days of Type

An animation featuring rejected book cover designs, each with a red letter X over it.

Collection
Book Covers

A bunch of Little Creeps stickers.

Experimental | 3D | Illustration
Little Creeps

A bunch hands reaching into a Union Squared pizza box and taking every slice.

Branding | Food & Bev

Union Squared

An illustrated bagel mascot appears in front of the word "Bagels" repeating.

Branding | Food & Bev
Schoolyard Bagels

Multiple pencil sketch iterations of the word "Lettering" against a black background.

Collection
Type & Lettering

Custom logo lettering sketches for Midwest Nice, a Chicago-based art and gift shop.

Collection
Logos & Logotypes

A hand writing "No Scrubs" in copperplate-style calligraphy

Personal Project
Lowbrow Calligraphy

Custom illustrations for Canna Remedies dispensary showing cannabis products moving against a purple background.

Branding | Illustration | Cannabis
Canna Remedies

Frank & Furter's Handcrafted Hot Dogs mascots chasing one another.

Branding | Illustration | Food & Bev
Frank & Furter's

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