Centre Culturel Irlandais

The challenge

Since 1578, an Irish community has lived, studied and created in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Today that site is the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Ireland's cultural home in Europe. Its historic buildings are now being reimagined, and in early 2025 the Centre began making its case to the Irish Government for Ireland's Paris Project, a once-in-a-generation plan to transform the site.

That case needed a visual identity, and a story that showed the power of culture to build economic and political influence. The project had to look like it meant business and speak just as clearly to diplomats, academics, artists and the Irish community in Paris. It also had to work as part of the Centre's family while standing firmly on its own.

The thinking

The answer was on rue des Irlandais all along. The Paris Project mark is the footprint of the building itself, seen from above and reduced to a single bold shape. It also happens to read as an abstract outline of Ireland. The result is a recognisable symbol the Centre owns and can play with. It holds its own on a slide for a minister, relaxes on social, and always feels like it belongs to the place.

We developed the design guidelines and set clear rules for how the Paris Project mark sits alongside the Centre's own logo. The tagline, the renaissance of our cultural home in Europe, sits beside the mark rather than inside it, which keeps the symbol clean and lets the line do the explaining.

Every output, from presentations and booklets to email and SMS, was designed with a specific stakeholder in mind, whether cultural, diplomatic or educational. The same deck could open differently for a minister, a university or Culture Ireland. The films and follow-up materials carried the story further, with titles in English, French and Irish.