For the last sev­eral months, we’ve been lucky enough to work with an amaz­ing group of women on the brand­ing for the New Space for Women’s Health, a cen­ter for birth and well­ness. The cen­ter, sched­uled to open in 2010, will be the only space of its kind in New York City. They have been great clients from the begin­ning — com­pletely recep­tive to our sug­ges­tions and open to an iden­tity that truly set them apart. Over the course of the project we’ve designed every­thing from the logo to the sta­tionery to the website.

Last night a few of us had the priv­i­lege of attend­ing a huge ben­e­fit for the New Space, the offi­cial pre­mière of the doc­u­men­tary The Business of Being Born. Produced by Ricki Lake, the pre­mière was held at the IFC Center here in New York. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by the New Space logo glow­ing above us on a huge screen. And as we moved through the space we saw that the logo was plas­tered all over the place, includ­ing on the cook­ies handed to us as we entered the theater.

The film itself was amaz­ing. Dana and I both give our reac­tions below—

Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein intro­duce the film

Courtney: To be per­fectly hon­est, I have never seen such a pow­er­ful film in my life. This whole expe­ri­ence of work­ing with the New Space has com­pletely opened my mind to dif­fer­ent ideas about child­birth. But even so, I was still appre­hen­sive about see­ing the movie. There is clearly a stigma of pain and fear attached to the process of child­birth. And I was wor­ried see­ing the movie would heighten that fear. But instead the com­plete oppo­site hap­pened. I’m see­ing things in a new way. This is such an impor­tant film. I’m mak­ing sure every woman I know hears all about it and sees it for themselves.

Dana: I feel priv­i­leged that a film like this has been made before I’ve had chil­dren. When we started research for the iden­tity of The New Space, I began to real­ize the ben­e­fits of giv­ing birth nat­u­rally and how nice it would be to have a mid­wife. But hav­ing been pre­con­di­tioned to think that giv­ing birth should only be done in a hos­pi­tal, I remained skep­ti­cal. Now that I’ve seen this movie, I am con­vinced that the U.S. is birthing in an unnat­ural way. I agree with Courtney on how pow­er­ful this movie is and would like to add that this movie will, and has, changed my life. I also real­ize how une­d­u­cated I am about child­birth and how much research I will be doing before I decide how my chil­dren will brought into this world. Everyone needs to see this film, espe­cially young women who are approach­ing this impor­tant stage in their lives. Thank you to all the amaz­ing and inspir­ing women who col­lab­o­rated to make this film. It is truly a gift.

Preliminary archi­tec­tural plans for the New Space

Overall it was a great night, a suc­cess for both the film and the New Space for Women’s Health. We were lucky to be a part of it. You can find out more about the New Space here, and find out about The Business of Being Born here.