Museums
Kanal by Base Design
Kanal is a museum-to-be with an admirable yet bold raison d’être that defies much of what we think we know about the nature of highbrow cultural sites: not a “finished institution, but a cultural project in motion,” as its general director Yves Goldstein puts it. Based in Brussels, Kanal will – somewhat surprisingly – become the city’s only museum of...
Kunsthalle Basel by Porto Rocha
Basel is a fascinating place – beautiful but unassuming, relatively small but the undisputed capital of the contemporary art world. Not only is it the host of – as you’d guess from the name – Art Basel, the Art Fair that arguably forms the pinnacle of the global art market calendar, but it also has one of the highest densities...
The Huntington by Base Design
There’s a particular kind of challenge that crops up again and again in cultural branding – not obscurity exactly, but partial recognition. The sort where an institution is famous for one thing, quietly exceptional at several others, and yet rarely understood as a coherent whole. The Huntington, a century-old cultural and research institution in Southern California, sits squarely in that...
Philadelphia Art Museum by Gretel
Creating museum and gallery identities must be both a dream brief and an intimidating prospect for brand designers; a poisoned chalice of sorts. We hear the same challenges time and again when agencies discuss such projects: creating a brand that’s both strong and ownable but which lets the artefacts/art take centre stage; an identity that takes an institution into the...
ROM by Leo Burnett
Okay, let’s get it out of the way… yes, there are elements of Pentagram’s 2018 Library of Congress in Leo Burnett’s work for the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). In both projects, type is a frame for images of archive material. Is it BP&O’s responsibility to acknowledge similarities in all the work we publish, tracking a typology back to the start...
National Portrait Gallery by Edit Brand Studio
In June 2023, a giant of British cultural life awoke from a three year slumber. The return of the National Portrait Gallery evokes a joy that is made all the keener when one recalls the troubled time in which it closed its doors: March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and public life evaporated in the announcement of that...
Natural History Museum by Pentagram & Nomad
If you grew up in the UK, the Natural History Museum is likely synonymous with two things: the massive blue whale suspended from the ceiling, or the equally large diplodocus skeleton. For many British kids, the museum is a childhood staple – either from school trips, or days out with parents who, rather savvily, combine a widespread fascination among youngsters...
Norwich Castle by The Click
The competitive landscape for experiences has been significantly catalysed post-pandemic. Perhaps the sensory deprivation of stay-at-home orders created an intense need to make up for lost time, indulge in all manner of out-of-home activities and platform them. Times have changed. Old needs to feel new and fight on equal footing with what appears to be an endless stream of pop-up...
MoMA by Order
The MoMA logotype, set in Franklin Gothic No. 2 and designed by Ivan Chermayeff, is an icon, and has been part of the New York urban landscape and international museum graphic vernacular since its creation in 1964. With evolving communicative needs and channels, the MoMA logotype was made a central graphic device as part of a new visual identity launched in...
Self, Made by Collins
Exploratorium is a “public learning laboratory” and San Francisco based museum that enables visitors to question and make sense of the world around them through hands-on exhibits that touch upon science, art and human perception. Its summer 2019 exhibition, Self, Made, continues in the spirit of exploration but turns this inward, tackling the theme of human identity. It did this...
Exploratorium After Dark by Collins
Exploratorium is a “public learning laboratory” and San Francisco based museum that enables visitors to question and make sense of the world around them through hands-on exhibits that touch upon science, art and human perception. These include a pitch-black dome, fog bridge, large-scale kaleidoscope, light displays and array of image bending mirrors. Every Thursday the museum hosts After Dark, an...
Helsinki City Museum by Werklig
Helsinki City Museum, through its collection of objects and images, provides visitors with historical insight into the everyday lives and personal experiences of the people of Helsinki. It is free to enter and features 2400 sqm of exhibitions and public spaces, a cafe, inner courtyard, areas to relax and conference rooms. To coincide with a move to a new space;...