Cantors Assembly Launches New Logo and Website In Anticipation Of 75th Anniversary

In anticipation of its upcoming 75th Anniversary in 2022, the Cantors Assembly has launched a rebranding effort beginning with an all-new, full-color logo and website to go along with a slate of all-new online programming catering to the needs of a North American Jewish community weary of the confinement brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

For a whole host of reasons, we felt the time to rebrand is now. The last time we redesigned our logo was almost 25 years ago. Our organization has changed pretty dramatically since then, and we felt the time had come for a significant upgrade to our graphics to reflect the changes that have taken place in the cantorate and in the Jewish community at large.

One such change was the inclusion of women into the cantorate. When the logo was previously redesigned, women made up a very small percentage of the cantorate. It's not so much that the old logo was so male-centric, and it did appeal to a lot of people, but we're just a different organization now, the Jewish world is different, and our logo needs to reflect that.

Representing the values of the organization in the new logo required careful planning and thought. We wanted the logo to say three things: Jewish, music and connection, because ultimately as cantors, that's what we're all about: we use music as our primary tool to create opportunities to connect people to community, to God and to their best selves.

More than "just" Jewish

There's a famous quote that "Jews are just like everyone else only more so." As cantors, we struggled most with the Jewish part of our logo. How do we say "Jewish" without using a Magen David (Star of David), like so many other Jewish organizations do? We wanted our new logo to be Jewish, but more than 'just' Jewish. We explored all kinds of imagery including havdalah candles and harps as well as Biblical imagery, ultimately settling on a design that suggests both the burning bush and the tree of knowledge, all of which is expressed through an abstract representation of an interlocking collection of stained glass panels.

In addition to the imagery, the colors were also extremely important. We utilized an eclectic color palette that is symbolic of the myriad skills and assets that our members bring to their communities. In traditional color theory, red symbolizes boldness and passion, which can be seen in the little red musical notes appearing as fruit dangling from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We also wanted people to see our musical creativity and warmth in the orange and yellow flames of the burning bush. The green foliage speaks to the stability and vitality that we bring to our communities, and a calming sense of peace is suggested by the blue sky which fills out the image.

Rather than hire an individual designer, we conducted a contest on 99designs.com that brought in over 100 different designs over the course of 10 days from designers all around the world. We thought it was important to see submissions from people who had a fresh vision, most of whom were not even Jewish. This design took us completely by surprise when it first came in. It was so different from anything else we had seen and was so rich with the symbolism that we had been seeking.

A New Landing Page

In addition to the CA's social media accounts, our new logo will be prominently displayed and constantly visible on a newly-designed website. The focus of our previous home page had always been on news and current events. What was missing, though, was a coherent story about the cantorate and the essential value cantors as clergy bring to their congregations.

In addition to wanting to reach congregational decision-makers, many of whom have been asking themselves, why do we need a cantor anymore when we could just as easily hire a songleader or cantorial soloist, we also wanted to make our website more user-friendly for our own members, as well as turning it into a resource for the general public.

Our main goal with the new website was to tell the most compelling story we could about the CA, who we are, and why anyone should care. To tell that story, we created an all-new homepage that is elegant in its simplicity, clean, super easy to navigate and, I think, quite beautiful. 

The first thing you’ll see when you visit our new website is a perpetual looped compilation video showing our members doing what we do best: connecting people to each other and to tradition, celebrating, teaching, and engaging children and adults alike. The video is accompanied by a list of verbs that describe some of the essential things we do for our communities. 

If all you want to do is login or donate, you can do that right from the upper right-hand corner of this view. If you want more, simply click on the hamburger icon in the upper left to reveal the same exact navigation that we already have in place on our current website. 

Begin to scroll down, and you’ll see a brief statement about the importance of the cantor throughout Jewish history, followed by our mission statement and a wonderful, brief documentary film featuring Billy Crystal and other well-known individuals from Judaism's Conservative movement and beyond speaking of the importance of what cantors do.

Below that, you’ll find links to our placement pages for congregations and members, followed by endorsements. We also wanted to make it easy for people to access all of our new online programs and shop for music in our store, so those links are there, too, though some of those pages are still under construction. Finally, at the very bottom is what used to be the entire contents of our home page: news. And in the footer on every page you’ll see our logo again along with quick links and contact information for our office. One of my own personal pet peeves is having to search through a website for its contact information, so we've simply put it tastefully on every page where it can easily be found.

Every item has been carefully crafted to tell a very specific story and give people access to the information they want without having to search far and wide for it. We're very excited about the look and feel of this new website and can't wait to start extending its functionality with video libraries, MP3s in our music store and much more.

More than anything, we wanted to turn our website into a real resource for people to not only find out about the cantorate, but to learn about and get access to Jewish music and history. Eventually, we even plan to include portals for online learning modules for nusah, cantillation and more, so stay tuned for that. This website is definitely a work in progress, but I believe it is a quantum leap beyond what we had before, and I can't wait to see what it will become.

For more information, visit us at https://www.cantors.org/ or contact our Director of Communications, Hazzan Mike Weis