Guess it wasn’t the wall after all

Brian Clark

January 17, 2012
Legislation and Policy

Sorry, Broncos fans, we tried.

Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Bill Belichick’s hoodie and the New England Patriots proved to be too much for the overmatched Denver Broncos Saturday night, despite CHI’s best efforts.

Allow me to explain.

We’ve been in the process of phasing out our old logo and we turned our attention to the wall in our lobby. While we waited for the printer to deliver our new oversized hanging logo, CHI’s Tim Dunbar and I spent a recent Friday afternoon applying a fresh coat of dark blue paint to the main accent wall (It turns out painting is one of those hidden job descriptions. They tell me it’s buried deep in the small print).

The logo was installed last Thursday, but once we saw it hanging on the wall we noticed a small problem. Because of a printing mix-up the gold parts turned out a little more like orange. Actually a lot more like orange. Actually a lot more like Bronco orange. Pair that with the dark blue wall and let’s just say our lobby wall would not look out of place in John Elway’s office at Dove Valley.

Now this wall just happens to be right behind the desk of CHI executive assistant Kathy Helm, who just happens to be one of the biggest Broncos fans I’ve ever met. Many of the decorations on her desk are of the orange and blue variety, so at least our printing mixup was color coordinated.

As I looked at the orange and blue wall behind Kathy’s desk and the orange and blue decorations on Kathy’s desk, I started to think that maybe what we were dealing with wasn’t a printing error after all, but rather some higher power at work. That maybe just maybe there was something to the special feeling surrounding this year’s Broncos team. That maybe just maybe the CHI Lobby Wall would be mentioned in the same breath as Tebow Time and Mile High Magic when people looked back fondly on the 2012 Super Bowl Champion Broncos. That maybe just maybe fans would come from far and wide to have their picture taken while Tebowing in the CHI lobby. That maybe just maybe our little wall would some day hold up a ceiling at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Then the game started.

It turns out sometimes a printing error really is just a printing error.

It’s probably for the best. If the Broncos had gone on to win the Super Bowl there is no way Kathy would have let us get the logo fixed and then we’d have to go get all our marketing materials redone in orange and blue. Who needs that kind of hassle?

Instead, we’ll spend our time continuing to rebrand CHI and build on our fresh visual approach to presenting health care data and information, including:

  • The recently published 2012 Legislative Opportunities and Trends, a report that presents the major themes and elements shaping this year’s legislative session. We’ve had a tremendous response to the report, and are proud to see it viewed as such a valuable resource of health policy information.
  • Our website redesign. During the next few months we will be extremely busy working with the folks over at Rabble + Rouser, our website redesign firm, to brainstorm, develop and create a fantastic new site. It will deliver the same data you’ve come to depend on, while also incorporating more value-added data and unique CHI insight. We’ll provide more updates about this exciting project over the next several months.

In the meantime, baseball season is just around the corner. I better order some purple paint.