Events

The Museum

Support

New Initiatives

Your Visit

The Significance of our New Logo

The Full Story

When we asked Highchair designhaus in Pawtucket to help us with a new website, they also offered to update our complete look and image with a new logo. We weren’t convinced that we wanted one in the beginning, but after seeing some of their ideas, and this final one, we were thrilled. Highchair designed it with the rich history of the mill in mind, and here is an explanation of its features.

	Textile Pattern Slater Mill has its history rooted in the growing textile industry of the 19th century. With that in mind, we developed a simple background pattern to suggest the fabrics of the industry at the time. This pattern is not based on any specific pattern from the time period – instead, it is fairly modern – but it is used to suggest the repeating pattern of textiles.
	The Cotton Plant Certainly, as with water power, the Mill would not be what it is today without the cotton plant and its fluffy base of industry. Older logos have always focused on the machinery of the mill or the pictureque falls that the mill is built around, but none of them have tried to incorporate the cotton plant. This will become even more significant as Slater Mill moves towards becoming a center for the craft/DIY movement, as the conversion of raw goods into sellable goods with real homemade personality becomes a mainstay of the mill.
	The Cupolas While the Wilkinson Mill is a stone mill and the Slater Mill is a wooden one; while one uses a horizontal water wheel and the other uses a vertical turbine; and while one was a machine shop and the other was used primarily for spinning, the two major structures that the Museum is built around have one similar architectural feature – an octagonal cupola atop a sloping roof. This feature was worked into the logo so that the viewer was reminded that Slater Mill continues to be a place, not just an idea, where history was made.
	The Old Slater Mill Sign The actual text that Highchair decided to use – the mechanical-looking, squared-off font – was not a random choice either. It is actually based upon the detail of a historical photo from 1872 seen here. This lettering is also similar to that produced by the narrow fabric loom, which is operating daily at the Mill. Highchair used a modern version of a similar font, both referencing history and being clean & modern.
	The Taglines The two taglines are new and Highchair felt they needed to be included in the logo, though the logo can stand without the “Where Innovation Starts” tagline if need be. “Where Innovation Starts” echos the idea that Slater Mill is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, but also the idea that the Mill is undertaking new and innovative initiatives, such as the Turbine Restoration Project. The “Since 1793” was added to lend a certain gravitas to the Mill, as it does stand today as one of the oldest sites in the country.