Logo to Go: Local Designers Miffed at MCA

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Anyway, the force went about its task, finally narrowing the list to seven design firms, from which written proposals were requested. After reviewing those proposals, MCA executives cut the list to three–two New York firms and one from Chicago. The finalists were called in to make presentations, and the winner was a New York firm called Pentagram. “The best firm for our needs happened to be in New York,” says Consey, who plans to unveil the new logo this fall. The Pentagram executive working directly with the MCA is Woody Purdle, a widely respected designer who has had a hand in design projects for several museums, including the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the Tate Gallery outpost in Liverpool, England, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

None of the 3,000 or so practicing professional designers in Chicago have stepped forward to question Purdle’s qualifications or talent; some simply wonder whether a local design firm might not have been equally qualified and talented. “I think the MCA would have done well to support the local community,” notes designer Rick Valicenti, who last year won an all-Chicago competition for Lyric Opera’s new logo design. Others believe Consey would have been surprised by the range of possibilities had he opted for a similar competition. “I think that would have given the museum a broad range of alternatives,” notes Bob Vogele, president of the Chicago-based American Center for Design.

Several actors in the Wisdom Bridge Theatre production of Soft Remembrance were on the phone recently with Actors Equity representatives discussing their concerns about bounced checks written out against a Wisdom Bridge bank account. Equity regulations allow actors to request payment in cash rather than by check. According to Soft Remembrance cast member Etel Billig, Wisdom Bridge producing director Jeffrey Ortmann apologized for the bounced checks and said steps were being taken to correct the problem. Joyce Sloane, chairman of Wisdom Bridge’s board of directors, said she had been told that a check to cover the actors’ payroll was found undeposited on a bank officer’s desk. Ortmann, the man in the middle of this embarrassment, is the same gentleman who could be heard screaming last month that soon-to-depart League of Chicago Theatres executive director Diane Olmen was being unfairly accused of mismanagement.

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