Invitation for the Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum

The invitations were fun because it forced me to research some of the design practices of the late 1800s and early 1900s. There is a lot of floral scroll work and whimsical ornamentation. It is rare to find display type that hasn’t been warped or shaped in some exotic way. Next was the informational type. Modern design frowns on the use of many typefaces in a single design. Turn-of-the-century design is just the opposite. It was hard to let myself do it but the result was a nice nostalgic effect. This was a single color design, 5.5×8.8 (about), on a cream color card stock.

Program for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of the Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum

For the program, it was decided to print in black and white, in-house. Referencing an old mortgage bond for the Greenville & Columbia Railroad Company, I fashioned the little lines surrounding the “Ribbon Cutting” banner. The rest of the typesetting has a more formal feel due to the formal nature of the ceremony. 

Casey Jones Historical Fund Form

Finally, the Casey Jones Historical Fund form was created to distribute to folks interested in contributing a donation. Although forms aren’t too exciting, it was another opportunity to play with the ornamentation around the logo. 

I’d like to thank the folks at Casey Jones Village and encourage you to visit them if you are ever coming through Jackson, Tennessee on I-40. It’s right off of the highway and it’s a lot of family fun. Thanks, also, to Heather Hornbeak at Cedarway photography for the photo of someone (probably her) holding the program. Check Cedarway’s stuff out as well.

This fund was established in partnership with the West Tennessee Healthcare Foundation to benefit the new Casey Jones Railroad Museum. The logo needed to stand alone, apart from the various enterprises under the banner of the Casey Jones Village. Originally, I wanted to try my hand at a horizontal, rectangular wood-cut image of a train. However, after we discussed the project, the client had envisioned a circular design resembling the front of a steam engine. Open sketchbook.

Since late April, I’ve been pouring over train books noting details in train design as well as turn-of-the-century promotional design (I LOVE the public library!). I am still in the process of forcing this obsession on myself; I think this is only the beginning. Any-hoo, one thing I’ve noticed about this period in design is the typefaces. These faces range from the very stout sans-serif to the elegant, scripty style such as I used in this logo. I particularly love the embellished jut from the lower portion of the ‘J.’ I decided to use the initials in this decorative way because I didn’t like the alternatives I kept coming up with. Any image would be a departure from our train-face; a number, as is common in such spots on trains, would confuse the message of the logo. I saw this as an opportunity to develop an identity that is strongly rooted in the period style rather than a literal depiction of what the fund was established to do. 

The sketch you see below was a rough idea of what I wanted to do. In the beginning, I tried tracing this sketch but you can never underestimate the subtleties of a well crafted typeface. I ended up using Harrington as my base and altered the design to achieve the solution you see here. And there’s the key word: solution. Much of design is problem-solving. Sometimes the problem is simple and it doesn’t take much to solve it; sometimes the problem is great and takes a lot of time to solve. Unfortunately, some logo projects, if executed well, will seem like it took ten minutes to accomplish. I’ve grown fond of telling clients that logos are “deceptively simple.” What seems like an obvious and quick solution may have taken hours to accomplish. 

The end result here was completed by our deadline and the client was pleased. I love having a fresh start to an enterprise. Unlike other projects commissioned by Casey Jones Village, I get to be involved in the Historical Fund’s identity from the beginning. Stay tuned to see the development of the Casey Jones Village, the Old Country Store, the Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum, and the Casey Jones Historical Fund projects. I’ve had a blast working with them and can’t wait to show you more.

Casey Jones Historical Fund Logo