Vivo Apartments
Branding a modern apartment community for Cambridge’s innovation district
We partnered with Aimco to create the full brand identity for ViVO Apartments—a modern, energetic community designed for young professionals working in Cambridge’s expanding biotech and tech sectors. From naming and logo design to graphic elements and brand voice, we developed a visual system that reflects the vibrancy, creativity, and movement of the neighborhood.
Client
Aimco
Industry
Multifamily residential / urban living
Services
Naming, brand identity, logo, tagline, illustration, signage, print collateral, environmental branding elements
Our naming strategy focused on bridging the biotech context with Millennial sensibilities. Vivo, meaning ‘life’ and echoing lab vernacular, proved both authentic and memorable.
The Challenge
ViVO Apartments needed to stand out in a crowded Cambridge residential market, especially among young professionals drawn to the biotech and tech corridor.
The existing visual approach lacked energy, personality, and a clear point of differentiation. The challenge was to create a fresh, contemporary brand identity that captured the vibrancy of the innovation district and resonated with a design-savvy, millennial audience—something bold enough to break from traditional apartment branding and expressive enough to reflect the lifestyle of its residents.
The Solution
We developed the ViVO name as a short, memorable expression of life and movement—qualities that echo both the biotech vernacular and the energy of Cambridge’s innovation district.
The visual identity builds on this idea through bold geometric forms, a vibrant color palette, and a clean, modern typographic system. Custom illustrations and expressive patterns add personality and dimension, helping the brand feel youthful, design-forward, and unmistakably contemporary.
The system was applied across signage, print collateral, environmental graphics, and leasing materials, ensuring a cohesive experience from first impression to move-in. Each element was designed to stand out in a neutral-dominated market while staying flexible enough to evolve across future applications.
The logo uses the shapes of medical flasks and beakers as an inspiration for the logo.
Futura’s clean, geometric forms echo the bold shapes of the Vivo logo, reinforcing its modern, playful, and architectural character.
The color palette uses bold orange-red, vibrant chartreuse, crisp white, and deep navy to create a bright, fresh, attention-getting identity.
With bold patterns and adaptable logo positioning, the brand was able to evolve and extend across a wide range of applications.
Award-winning illustrator Jody Hewgill developed a painting that captured the energy and lifestyle of the building as well as the international nature of the target audience.
The tagline’s O becomes a defining element, repeated through the illustration patterns to anchor the brand’s visual language with clarity and intention.
Collateral and signage concepts extend the brand with a cohesive, contemporary visual language.
