The Station – Fueling McGregor’s Main Street, Past and Present

About This Project

The Station started with a history rich in nostalgia. A 1930s Standard Oil filling station in McGregor, Iowa, being reimagined as a diner-tavern concept by Columbia Hospitality, the first project in a broader effort to revitalize a town of 700 people with a dwindling, aging population. This was brand work in service of keeping a town alive.

With a father that ran the original service station in that location, the emotional core came from the owner, whose personal connection to the building shaped every creative decision that followed. Instead of generic Americana, The Station needed branding was specific to a place, a family, and a beloved main street.

I five different logo directions for the initial pitch, each in it’s own style, pulling from different elements surrounding The Station: vintage nostalgia, hip & simple, classic 50s diner, maximalist emblem, and deep gas station. Working closely with the Columbia Hospitality marketing team and the team at The McGregor Project, we landed on a system that could flex across signage, menus, and merchandise without losing the thread back to the classic gas station.

Deliverables included the full identity system with four different versions of the logo, a supporting color palette, a set of custom icons, and typography set.

The Station is a reminder that the best brand work doesn’t invent a story. It finds the one already sitting in the building and gets out of its way, and sometimes it’s the first domino in bringing a whole town back.