The Enolia
Completed Date
2025
Industry
Apartment / Mixed-Use
Discipline
Experiential DesignBrand Design
Enolia McMillan was a trailblazing educator and civil rights leader who spent most of her life in Baltimore working to make it better. Her career was marked by a number of incredible firsts including being the first African American administrator at a number of schools, the first woman to chair the Morgan State University Board of Regents, and the first female national president of the NAACP. To quote the late congressman Elijah Cummings, “She was a path-finder, a record-breaker, a pace-setter.”
Discovering her remarkable story during our naming process, with its deep connections to Baltimore and Morgan State, led to a very unique and meaningful branding direction for this project. The Enolia brings off-campus student apartments to the heart of Northeast Baltimore, not far from Morgan State’s campus.
We created a custom script wordmark based on Enolia McMillan’s signature. Exploring a number of stylistic options, we landed on a mark that embodies two traits characteristic of our muse: timelessness and elegance.
When translated into illuminated signage, the logo’s classic aesthetic brings a unique look to the building’s façade at 4529 Harford Road, while echoing back to the lettering styles of the early decades of McMillan’s long and storied career. Additionally, the graceful script emulates the elegance that Enolia epitomized throughout her life.
Upon entering the building, residents are greeted by a branded reception area featuring a large “Make Your Mark” motif, which honors the influential life that Enolia McMillan lived. Around the corner, a wall of dimensional panels highlights several of her iconic “firsts.”
The wordmark based on Enolia’s signature also fits right in among the vibrant finishes of the building’s interior. Open channel letters housing LED neon stand out against a backdrop of high-gloss tile in the Enolia’s common kitchen.
Enolia McMillan and Morgan State students alike have a long history of standing up for civil rights, particularly in the Baltimore area. Consequently, we were inspired by the typography of the Civil Rights movement when selecting brand typography. VTC Martin, a typeface created by Vocal Type Co., was modeled after the wood type headlines often found on newspapers and posters throughout the Civil Rights era. Such headlines can be found in Baltimore’s own Afro-American newspaper from that time. This historical connection, along with its unique style, makes it a perfect display typeface for the brand.
In the fitness center, YDI designed large-scale wall graphics that use Morgan State’s official colors. Dynamic polygonal figures are paired with a bold message of inspiration, set in the Enolia brand’s typeface.
In the building’s mailroom, YDI designed a collage of historic materials from Enolia’s life. From wall to wall, residents can read letters, newspaper articles, and other ephemera to learn more about the life of this extraordinary woman.
Room signage at The Enolia features gentle rounded corners with glyphs in relief, routed out of the front panel of the sign to reveal a lower layer. Amenity glyphs echo the rounded corners of the sign. Unit ID signage features large routed numbers as well, and colors correspond to the bright finishes used on accent walls beside the entry to each unit, bringing an extra pop of color to residential hallways.
At each elevator lobby, large dimensional floor numbers stand out against a tonal “Make Your Mark” graphic, with colors varying by level. The interplay of these two elements adds depth and an extra splash of the Enolia’s brand to these common areas.
