When we began our leadership journeys with Celebrity Series of Boston, we imagined an organization that would welcome everyone to a diverse lineup of extraordinary performing arts events.
Since then, our Neighborhood Arts performance series and citywide public performance projects have flourished, inviting tens of thousands to free concerts and participatory performances across Boston. We have expanded our annual season with more performances, bringing dozens of artist debuts each season while deepening our exploration of all our artistic genres. We have launched initiatives to reach younger audiences, introduced low-cost ticketing programs, and improved the accessibility of our events.
As we look to the future, it is important that our organizational name and brand fully express our mission, vision, and values in a way that resonates with returning and prospective audience members. To accomplish this goal, we partnered with Boston-based agency Colossus for an eighteen-month process of research, listening, creation, and consensus-building.
Today, we’re proud to re-introduce Celebrity Series as Vivo Performing Arts.
This new name and the welcoming, vibrant, and contemporary identity that accompanies it are expressions of who we have become and where we’re headed. Vivo is a natural outcome of our strategic vision and an expression of the vitality, inclusivity, and artistic excellence that define our work. Vivo embraces everyone we serve and celebrates the spectrum of performing artists we present, from household names to the newest emerging talents.
As you explore the new brand, know that Vivo Performing Arts is for you. There’s a place for you in our community of longtime audience members, dedicated supporters, exceptional artists, and curious newcomers alike.
In the seasons to come, Vivo Performing Arts will continue to grow and evolve. We’re confident that the new identity captures the living, vital heart of the series that you’ve known and loved and carries it forward for generations to come.
With gratitude,
Gary and Joshua
Joshua Boger, PhD Chair, Board of Directors
Gary Dunning President & Executive Director
REBRANDING
Branding is a company’s marquee to the world. It announces who you are, what you’re about, and how anyone who stops to listen and look is meant to feel about it. Beyond the surface level, successful branding strives to be recognizable, dependable, and honest—something built to last. It requires that companies understand their mission on an innermost level, dovetail that with the needs of the consumer, and move with longevity and reciprocity in mind. Ultimately, success is achieved when it feels like that brand has truly come to life.
Naturally, branding evolves through subtle shifts and slower, more incremental changes. As the decades pass, branding is expected to transform, like the facade of a longstanding building.
But a full rebrand means a complete identity overhaul for the better. Rebranding Celebrity Series of Boston into Vivo Performing Arts meant finding a kinetic new look to complement the organization’s mission and values. Crafting a brand for the contemporary age meant taking a look at what demanded change, and what didn’t.
Our conclusion? Celebrity Series gets a new tempo: modern typography, pops of colors curated to mix and match, and most significantly, a new name. But a dedication to the beloved performances, awe-inspiring talent, and community partnerships that we’ve hosted for nearly 90 years? That’s key to the brand, and always will be.
MISSION
To enrich and inspire our community through exceptional live performances.
We envision a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, life-long, shared experience―on stages, on streets, in neighborhoods―everywhere.
VISION
OUR STRATEGIC PLAN
In May 2024, in partnership with our longtime collaborators at Deloitte, we refreshed our strategic plan, defining five goals and five strategies key to the organization’s future. Aligning the brand and the name with our mission, vision, and values is one of the strategies we believe will support our goals of broadening our reach, diversifying our audience, and deepening audience engagement.
The new name, Vivo Performing Arts, captures our mission and vision: to present live arts experiences that move, connect, and inspire. It invites curiosity and removes the barriers and misconceptions that the word “celebrity” sometimes creates for younger and newer audiences.
The brand conveys our artistic quality and distinctiveness, and our organizational values of joy, equity, collaboration, integrity, and curiosity. Its organic shapes, hand-drawn details, and vibrant color palette reflect the humanity and creative energy at the heart of our work. The flexibility inherent in the brand elements ensures a unique look and equitable presentation for each event, whether on a grand stage or in a neighborhood park.
With a name that reflects our purpose, welcoming visuals that appeal across generations, and a unified presentation that connects all our programs, Vivo Performing Arts positions the organization to fulfill the promise of our strategic plan and to build a thriving future for the arts for everyone in Boston.
COLLABORATION CURIOSITY EQUITY INTEGRITY
WHY VIVO?
The notable difference between the names Celebrity Series of Boston and Vivo Performing Arts is by design.
Celebrity Series, while a stalwart title for 87 years, was weighted by disconnect; two words that no longer fully encompassed the performances we platform or the audiences we aim to serve. Embedded in our values is the imperative to curate a space that feels inclusive to all. In order to center the universal magic of the performing arts, we needed a name that felt passionate, moving, and grounded in community.
As an organization that prioritizes the power of performance above all, we needed something that felt allencompassing, inviting, and attentiongrabbing. Vivo, with its bold and zippy enunciation, sparks excitement and intrigue. It’s a name that feels like a burst of energy—like the sun flare of a spotlight, or the power of a single resonating note. It jolts the brand into the present, bringing all the joy and vivacity of the artistry we represent. Through a carefully mapped 6-month transition plan, audiences will be introduced to Vivo’s new name and identity—with the reassurance that we’re the same organization they know, trust, and love.
BRAND POSITIONING
Vivo Performing Arts is a credentialed curator that connects Bostonians through the transportive power of live performance.
MESSAGING
WHERE CREATIVITY COMES ALIVE.
In Boston, a city made vibrant by its countless cultures and creativity, we are inspired by the Spanish word vivo—meaning ‘alive, to live’, from the Latin verb vivere: to endure, to last, to subsist. We know that part of being alive, being human, is our need to create, share, and experience art with one another. It’s something humans have done since the beginning of time to say: I was here. We were here, together.
Vivo Performing Arts is all about music, movement, artistry, and feeling fully present in the moment. We bring together personal expression and shared experiences, helping to keep culture vital and collaborative. As one of the top performing arts presenters in the country, Vivo Performing Arts works to bring incredible talent to our audiences. Guided by our commitment to bring the moment alive, we strive to grow by connecting with our community and building meaningful partnerships. Our legacy spans generations, featuring famous artists, landmark performances, and a lasting commitment to the arts—whether on stages, or in neighborhoods.
Vivo is a celebration of what it means to be alive.
LOGO DESIGN
The new logo is designed to evoke feelings of personalization, connection, and humanity. Painted by hand, the letterforms are intentionally imperfect and utilize the unique effect of ink bleed on paper. It is inherently visceral and expressive.
Like art and performance itself, the logo was created to reflect an intentional work-in-progress and a moment in time. All of it is perfectly tied together and displayed by the hand of the artist. Notably, the logo is all lowercase and without a rigid or consistent baseline, making it less formal. This is done with the intention of positioning the brand as an inviting and welcoming voice of the people; built with both the audience and performer in mind.
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY
To set the tone for this six month transition period, we captured the excitement of a new chapter with a spirited and colorful campaign. This was achieved through a roll-out of Out of Home placements, teasers, and a rousing launch video that together helped to anounce the new identity.
Carried across these executions are lively new hues, free-spirited illustrations, and a sentiment of reverence towards the past, present, and future of performing arts. We paired brand elements with exciting performance and artist photography to showcase the synchronicity between the seasons that
came before, and those that lie ahead. This campaign champions the moment as a cusp between the two.
Above all, we hope to spur on the next era of the brand while harkening back to the legacy that brought us here. Every note, chord, or drumbeat platformed in the last century carries an echo of the note, chord, or drumbeat that came before it. Vivo, while a dazzling new face to a decades-long history, is simply a carried torch—we are, and always will be, where creativity comes alive.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to Vivo Performing Arts
