Output: Sundays on The Roof
Defining the visual language of New York’s most notorious Sunday party.
Background
Output was one of the best clubs in Brooklyn defining techno and house venues, operating from 2013 until the end of 2018 at 74 Wythe Avenue on the Williamsburg waterfront. It was built in secrecy and surprised the city with its immersive sound, its underground ethos, and a level of musical curation that was unheard of. Output was wildly popular and notorious for its lines from the beginning.
The Roof was a seasonal project that ran every Sunday from 2013 to 2015. It was a huge success and became a staple of the New York summer party scene. The Roof was known for its eclectic lineups, stunning views of the Manhattan skyline, and a more relaxed vibe than the main club.
RESPONSIBILTIES
- Art Direction
- Brand & Identity Design
- Print, Web, and Digital Assets
- Over 100 Events in one Summer
Related Links
Interview Magazine
Justin Strauss On The End of Output, New Yorks Most Infamous Nightclub
The New York Times
‘Long Live Output’: Remembering the Magic of a Beloved Brooklyn Nightclub
Challenge
Output and the Panther Room already had a defined interior language shaped by imported East German fixtures, industrial detailing, and a severe, brutalist DDR sensibility.
As spring approached, Shawn Schwartz, part of the team behind Output and Cielo, asked me to develop the branding and visual identity for a new daytime dance floor up on The Roof. The challenge with the Roof was to create something lighter and more open than the main club while still feeling native to the previous agency’s branding.
He jokingly threw out George Seurat’s impressionist painting ‘A Sunday on La Grande Jatte’. The texture and warmth immediately felt right. I began experimenting more with texture and type.
What I ended up with was a series of lockups that could be used across all of the Roof’s branding and marketing materials. The lockups were designed to be flexible and could be used in a variety of contexts, from posters to social media graphics to merchandise.
Classic masterpieces suggested the structure of Sunday leisure; but the project needed something a little edgier. There was only so much I could do with a few impressionist paintings. I looked for imagery that could hold an interesting line between pleasure and unease at the same time.
Going through old art history notes I came across Heirnomyous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delight. A tryptich depicting saints and sinners. The Bosch piece supplied the excess, fantasy, and moral chaos. Together, they offered a way to make The Roof feel lighter than the main room without becoming soft or anonymous.
The Roof: Framing Chaos
The Bosch painting presented two great advantages. Bosch died hundreds of years ago clearing any royalty issues and I had come across a two gigabyte gigapixel scan of the painting giving us an incredible anount of source material to work with. The painting is a tryptich with three panels. The left panel depicts the Garden of Eden, the middle panel depicts the Garden of Earthly Delights, and the right panel depicts Hell. I took elements from all three panels to create a visual language for The Roof that could be playful, chaotic, and a little bit dark. The resulting lockups and patterns were used across all of the Roof’s branding and marketing materials all summer.
