Benjamin Wistar Morris Harris, a native Portlander who studied architecture at Columbia University in New York and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was tapped for the design. Morris went on to establish himself in New York with conceptual plans for Rockefeller Center, interior designs for the Queen Mary, and the Standard & Poor Building, whose arcade entrance faces the famous bull sculpture on the Bowling Green in lower Manhattan.
Morris' concept for the Wells Fargo Building is a colorful breed of circa-1906 vogue. The two-story base of the building features a granite plinth with limestone trim and Tuscan columns at the entrance, and the middle section's brickwork has a vertical pattern of diamonds with crosses inside, but its most notable attribute is its terra cotta. The building's crown, upper pilasters, keystones and various motif details (such as green Xs and blue- white waves just above the street level) accent the tan structure with vibrant color, especially at the top, where "WELLS" and "FARGO" are spelled out across the entablature on the Sixth Street and Oak Street sides, respectively.