Cambridge KiOSK

2025

Place

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CultureHouse x Cambridge Office for Tourism x City of Cambridge

Branding designed in collaboration with Meta Newhouse

CultureHouse Project Manager

Skills:

Brand identity
Adobe Illustrator
Web graphics
Interior design
Community engagement
Contractor coordination

Formerly Out of Town News, the Cambridge KiOSK is a vibrant arts and information hub in the center of Harvard Square.

Background
The space was a hugely popular newsstand from 1954 to 2019. During the pandemic, CultureHouse operated it as a pop-up community space where people could come inside, play games, and meet neighbors. When the City of Cambridge began searching for operators, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

To continue that work, CultureHouse proposed sharing the renovated space with the Cambridge Office for Tourism, combining the legacy of information sharing with community gathering. The team won the contract.

Brand identity
The space would be open permanently for the first time in five years, so we needed a mark that told people what we planned to do with it. At its heart, the KiOSK was to be an information center and cultural space, where CultureHouse and the Office for Tourism met. The word “kiosk” itself speaks to the history of information: a place you go to get it.

I filtered through many ideas, drawing on the MBTA, Harvard University, the newsstand’s legacy, and the building itself. I held many meetings with the Office for Tourism and representatives of the City of Cambridge to keep the brand exciting, recognizable, and grounded.

Typography: CultureHouse’s brand uses Red Hat Text, and since the KiOSK descended from that brand, we kept it. Red Hat Text tall letters (d, h, t, l, and k) are slightly angled at the top

The Q. Our original proposal ended the name with a “Q”: KiOSQ. We had many ideas for why the “Q”: creating a “SQ” or “Square” within the word, adding an element of surprise and uniqueness. We were also queering the idea of a kiosk, making it not just a place to buy newspapers but a spot to meet, make, learn, and find. Something new. With feedback from the Office for Tourism and the City of Cambridge, we ultimately returned to the traditional spelling, which kept us recognizable and familiar.

The “i”. The lowercase “i” does two jobs. Its slanted shoulders suggest a person, and it is also the iconic symbol for information. We carried its colorful dot onto the website as an oversized bullet that marks headings, so one small shape ties the identity together.

Space design
We wanted the space to be modular enough for many kinds of activity. We worked with the renovation designers to add ceiling structures for hanging artwork, and we asked for a desk shared by KiOSK staff and Office for Tourism volunteers, plus hanging frames that show work both inside and outside the building. We also sourced grids that hold artwork and move easily around the space.

Out of Town News was famous for its neon signs, so we pushed to have our own made for the reopening. We worked with neon fabricators to create a logo sign that shines across the square, and added the iconic “i” in neon at each corner of the building.

Brand Identity

Final Design

Proposal

Iterations

Space Design

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