Identity and Branding for the Columbia Club by Grant Glas:
Grant Glas has designed the graphic program for the Columbia Club’s famous Beefsteak Dinner —a 500 person black-tie party that took place on September 15 and featured guest speakers, President and CEO of Eli Lilly Dr. John Lechleiter and Indiana Lt. Governor Becky Skillman.
The mark’s modular form allows for a high degree of design flexibility and visibility across a range of communications from invitations to wall prints while presenting an updated look and feel for this traditional city event that began back in 1892. The new Beefsteak Dinner mark and graphic treatment fuses together graphics from the 1890’s and the trend setting styles of today, to produce a truly innovative identity.
To the left is a club music booklet circa 1892 which helped inspire the new Beefsteak logo seen above. To the right is a section from the 2009 program.
Several elements from the Beefsteak designs utilize the strict 90° angles of a De Stijl-inspired grid. (De Stijl is an art movement advocating pure abstraction and simplicity — form reduced to the rectangle and other geometric shapes, and color to the primary colors, along with black and white.)
During the dinner, several members of the club are honored. The geometric-based marks designed by Grant for the 25 and 50 year members reflect the letter "M".