Palmer House History

In 2010 I was asked to create designs to acknowledge the Palmer House’s 140th Anniversary. The marketing plan was to celebrate the entire year, with street banners, email signatures and a variety of public relations events. Given total creative freedom, I chose to introduce a fresh new color palette inspired by the famous murals on the ceiling of the lobby. The Palmer House GM and Executive Committee then chose the array of “blues” as well as a traditional direction celebrating the murals. The banners created hung along State and Monroe Streets from the end of 2010 throughout 2011, and the email signature used by our team to celebrate the milestone. History is Hott!! is a wildly successful tour offered at the Palmer House since 2011. The Illinois Meetings and Events Editor’s group picked this tour as the Best City Tour of 2013. Participants begin with an intimate lunch in Lockwood Restaurant followed by a lively and interactive walking tour of the hotel by hotel historian Ken Price. The tour is peppered with tales of bygone eras while viewing hotel highlights such as the hotel’s famous ballrooms, legendary Empire Room and pastry kitchen. For the tour, I needed to create collateral to recognize the hotel’s large body of historical work that popped with color. I’d already done several tribute “covers” of vintage ads I found in my first few years at the hotel in the archive room. The inspiration for the final design is the bright orange Eddy Duchin Empire Room ad, shown here, to the right of the initial History is Hott!! design.