A New Look for JPD, Rooted in Washington Heights
JPD has a new visual identity and a new website. The change is visible right away, but the ideas behind it are not new.
They come from Washington Heights.
For more than two decades, the Juan Pablo Duarte Foundation has grown out of the cultural and community life of the neighborhood—from Festival del Boulevard and educational opportunities for Dominican students to arts programming, community partnerships and the JPD Community Space.
As JPD grew, it needed an identity that could hold all of that work together.
“JPD has grown far beyond what we imagined when the Foundation was established in 2003,” says Founder and Executive Director Laura Acosta. “We needed an identity that could bring all of those parts of JPD together while remaining deeply connected to our Dominican heritage and to Washington Heights.”
A visual identity shaped by the neighborhood
The new identity, created with Brazilian designer Bruno Loos Agra, began with Washington Heights itself.
Its bold JPD initials take inspiration from the hand-painted lettering seen on storefronts, festival signs and protest banners, while the lighter wordmark gives the full name—Juan Pablo Duarte Foundation—clarity and balance.
The identity is meant to feel like the neighborhood rather than sit apart from it. The colors draw on Caribbean warmth, Latin American visual culture and the density of New York streets.
The graphic system also plays with corners, edges and shifting placement. The wordmark can move around a composition rather than always sitting neatly in one place—a reference to city blocks, intersections, storefronts and the shared spaces where neighborhood life happens.
“Every element traces back to the neighborhood itself—the color, the typography, the way the wordmark wraps around a corner like signage on a St. Nicholas Avenue deli,” said Bruno Loos Agra. “Washington Heights shaped this brand as much as I did.”
A new home online
The visual identity arrives with a redesigned jpdfoundation.org, organized around three connected areas of JPD’s work: Education & Opportunity, Arts & Culture, and Community. The site brings programs including Rosario’s Initiative, Festival del Boulevard, Un Chín Art Project and the JPD Community Space into one clearer home, with expanded access in both English and Spanish.
The point of the redesign was not to make JPD look like a different organization. It was to make the organization it has become easier to see.
The look is new.
The roots run deep.
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