The wordmark for Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Columbia GSAPP) takes its initial inspiration from a 1914 gift to the school: a sixteen-ton dark-green granite sphere, placed at the center of campus. The sphere, now removed, served as both a meeting place and as a large sundial displaying the local time.
Columbia GSAPP’s wordmark takes the place of this missing sphere. Existing across four different typographic weights (Morning, Noon, Dusk, Night), the mark itself changes dynamically throughout the day, in four steps. It is a logo that doubles as a clock, mimicking the movement of the sun across its letters. The mark emphasizes the importance of context to architecture as well as education, and suggests the movement of students across the campus and across the duration of their academic and professional careers.
