Apollo: Historic & Victoria Theaters

Creating the Future by Restoring the Victoria to its Former Glory

Housed within a luxury Vaudeville theater designed in 1917, The Apollo’s Victoria Theater is a 32,000 sq ft space that will house two state-of-the-art black box theaters and two floors of office space. The new theater complex will provide space for the growth of The Apollo’s work with emerging and established artists from Harlem and around the world, and for commissioned artistic programming.

Our goals are to:

• Give The Apollo’s Victoria Theater a presence in the building’s lobby
• Tell the Apollo story and establish The Apollo’s Victoria Theater as part of the Apollo family
• Layer the Apollo’s brand upon the architectural features of the third floor lobby of the Apollo’s Victoria Theater
• Honor the history of the Harlem Victoria Theater

The Program:

• Arrival experience design within the 1st floor lobby of the building
• Interior wayfinding leading audience members from the 1st floor lobby to the Apollo’s Victoria Theater third floor space,
• Secondary signage for major donors and ADA tertiary signage

A Signage Program in Honor of a Cultural Icon

From the onset, we wanted to design a signage program that captures this exciting moment for The Apollo, as they expand their footprint and their work. Inspired by the rich tapestry of art, music, and culture rooted in Harlem and the Black diaspora, we hoped to provide impactful moments of layering and texture while maintaining a contemporary aesthetic that complements the exciting new artwork to come.  

Building upon Apollo’s brand identity, we developed a pattern based on the Apollo logo’s iconic A. Used as a large-scale graphic with textured line-work, this pattern is a celebratory announcement that you are now entering an Apollo space.

On arrival to the third floor, in homage to the historic Apollo marquee sign, we built a faux-neon LED Apollo sign to welcome patrons as they exit the elevators.

Within the 3rd floor lobby, signage is seamlessly integrated with the architecture of the space. The sculptural form of the Procope Theater sign with its exaggerated depth matches the inset of the wall from the surrounding floating red acoustic panels. The Box Office sign has an angled slope matching the slope of the millwork panels. The narrow concrete pillar offered a restricted width and plentiful height for a unique donor wall. 

For the west wall of the lobby we ordered a custom color of “Fingerprints in the Wind”, a wallpaper pattern by Elle Gibson, a Black, Atlanta-based textile and interior designer. We particularly liked this pattern for its organic feel in contrast to the definitive nature of the architecture.

Throughout, we used a restricted and carefully considered material palette of brass, high density urethane, and aluminum with Apollo’s brand color palette of red, black and gold.

All signage was fabricated in collaboration with The Factory NYC.

Building a Campus with a Legacy Brand

Harlem’s Apollo Theater was constructed in 1913 and has since earned national, state, and city landmark status. Flyleaf is joining the team for the next phase of the building’s major restoration project, focused on the theater interior and lobby space with the addition of a cafe-bar and expanded retail area. Partnering closely with Charcoalblue, Beyer Blinder Belle, and the Apollo’s retail consultants, Flyleaf Creative is helping to shape the lobby experience.

Our goals are to:

• Tell the Apollo story
• Activate the lobby throughout the day
• Integrate graphics, technology, and history
• Create a welcoming space for both members of the community and tourists
• Layer inspiration from the Apollo’s Harlem neighborhood
• Design a clear wayfinding system within the complex historic building

The Program:

• Guiding the interior design of the lobby in collaboration with Charcoalblue
• Design of placemaking features to support storytelling goals
• Secondary signage for major donors and interior wayfinding for the four-story building, ADA tertiary signage