We made one decision early: the imagery had to be made by hand. An identity about real, personal change needed to show real change happening in physical materials, with results we couldn’t fully control.

So the work moved off the screen. We traced the wordmark in ink and submerged it in water. We used it to block the sun for cyanotypes. We dragged it across a scanner bed mid-scan. We cast it in ice from a silicone mould and photographed the letters as they melted.

Some experiments didn’t hold up. A copper patina test looked too much like paint drying, so we set it aside. The ones that worked became a library of real moments of change, each rendered in a deep Prussian blue.

In the catalogue, the identity steps back. Every artwork appears cleanly, with no borders and no brand colour behind it. The theme comes through in a small number of experiments carrying three words: Transform, Imagine, Become.

At the Royal York, the system was built for a venue the event hadn’t used before. Stage banners, wayfinding, digital screens, mirrored vinyl, signage and bidder paddles each drew on the transformation imagery and a wash of blue.

One moment of delight that invited attendees to create a moment of change themselves: a keepsake in the form of a pin coated in thermochromic ink. As attendees touch and handle the pin, it changes in colour from blue to white. Wearing it close to your heart sees the pin settling somewhere in between.

The identity was public by mid-July, and it kept changing from there. Each piece that followed, from the invitations to the catalogue to the screens on the night, showed the wordmark at a different stage of its transformation. Patrons never saw quite the same thing twice, and by the time they reached the Royal York they had followed it through several changes.

The enamel lapel pin is where the idea came full circle. It uses a special pigment that changes colour when it warms up. Simons writes that transformation happens with people, not to them, and on the night of the auction guests took home a reminder of that power that transforms every time they touch it. 

This theme and identity have given Casey House a new opportunity to tell their story about the transformative care they provide and all the ways this fundraiser, and the artists and collectors who participate, make that work possible.