London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is one of the world’s most famous museum brands. It’s logo, which sits just as comfortably on its iconic William Morris prints as it does on its latest fashion exhibition for Balenciaga, is instantly recognisable, and has become synonymous with art, design, fashion, music and culture.
Today the brand is seen as innovative and leading edge, yet 15 years ago the museum was considered to have lost its way. No longer inspiring to contemporary designers, it was described as “dusty and introverted”.
A forward-thinking director with a plan to a revitalise the buildings and its collections, combined with an overhaul of its brand and identity completely dispelled those issues and set it on an entirely new course.
“It has such history,” says Paul Brooks, the chief executive of Plymouth’s new cultural centre the Box. “It has been developed in such a way that it maintains its authority of its history, while still feeling fresh and contemporary.”
There is no template that can be applied when it comes to creating a visual identity. But Keith Cooper, the client director at arts marketing agency Dewynters, says that a logo should generally be “non-confrontational, adaptable, something that doesn’t overwhelm or isn’t too clever”.
A good visual identity has weight and meaning behind it, says Susie Stubbs, the managing director of Modern Designers. “Good design is based on understanding of an organisation, its audience, its aims and ambition.
“We don’t create logos by shopping in the ‘logo shop’; we create them based on our understanding of the brand. Without that understanding, all communication design is meaningless.”
She points to Modern Designers’ work with Manchester Museum, where the agency created an identity based on a sketch of the Tree of Life from Charles Darwin’s notebook.
“That pulls directly from the museum's history, which was founded in 1821 in direct competition with the Natural History Museum in London,” she says. “It took a political stance then, and still does now - speaking out about climate change, or taking a lead when it comes to the display of human remains. So the museum's new logo encapsulates some of that.”
Michael Smith, the founder of Cog Design, which created the visual identity for Canterbury’s the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, says the agency asks staff to bring in two objects during the workshop phrase.
“One to represent the existing museum, and one that represents their vision for the future,” he says. “This throws up all sorts of interesting discussion points and gets everyone in the mood to think in metaphors.”
Cog then produced boards of visual cues and asked staff to vote on which they think best “describes” the museum’s personality. “It can be really useful for us to see how staff react to a style of photography, or combinations of colours, or the front,” he says.
Cog created the Big B logo for the Beaney, which is an “aperture” through which the museum could show anything. Smith says the agency spent a lot of time refining the B and its curves to make it look “friendly, approachable but clear”.
“That’s why we choose a bold Sans Serif type face,” he adds. “We also created a dotted line that could be used elsewhere in the museum and on communications as a motif.”
Rules of the game
For Stubbs, the things to avoid are “design without proper thought behind it” and trends.
“If an identity follows a trend, it also follows that it will date very quickly,” she says. “We try to create identities that will last, crucial for publicly funded organisations who won’t have the money to rebrand every few years.”
Smith says that some analogies have now become so universal that they are meaningless. “We have a rule that nobody can use a jigsaw as an idea.,” he says. “You can apply a jigsaw metaphor to almost any situation.”
The increase in museum touchpoints, such as social media profiles and website, means that logos increasingly have to be flexible enough to work in different place and across different devices.
“Most people have realised that you can’t have a one-size-fits all badge that you stick on things,” Smith says.
For that reason, the current emphasis is on identities that can be adapted. “Something that can make best use of a 9mm circle in the Twitter app, and the 90-metre hoarding that temporarily masks your capital redevelopment,” Smith says.
But he adds: “The pendulum seems to have swung away from identities that ignored logos completely, instead focusing on consistent typography and rigid information layout. People seem to have realised that those solutions only work if you have the resources to keep investing in them, most museums don’t.”
Anyone can create a logo but not everyone can create one that sums up a brand in a visual way and can stand the test of time. Stubbs says: “Good design starts not with drawing, but with research, thought and – crucially – an under-the-skin understanding of an organisation.”
Today the brand is seen as innovative and leading edge, yet 15 years ago the museum was considered to have lost its way. No longer inspiring to contemporary designers, it was described as “dusty and introverted”.
A forward-thinking director with a plan to a revitalise the buildings and its collections, combined with an overhaul of its brand and identity completely dispelled those issues and set it on an entirely new course.
“It has such history,” says Paul Brooks, the chief executive of Plymouth’s new cultural centre the Box. “It has been developed in such a way that it maintains its authority of its history, while still feeling fresh and contemporary.”
There is no template that can be applied when it comes to creating a visual identity. But Keith Cooper, the client director at arts marketing agency Dewynters, says that a logo should generally be “non-confrontational, adaptable, something that doesn’t overwhelm or isn’t too clever”.
A good visual identity has weight and meaning behind it, says Susie Stubbs, the managing director of Modern Designers. “Good design is based on understanding of an organisation, its audience, its aims and ambition.
“We don’t create logos by shopping in the ‘logo shop’; we create them based on our understanding of the brand. Without that understanding, all communication design is meaningless.”
She points to Modern Designers’ work with Manchester Museum, where the agency created an identity based on a sketch of the Tree of Life from Charles Darwin’s notebook.
“That pulls directly from the museum's history, which was founded in 1821 in direct competition with the Natural History Museum in London,” she says. “It took a political stance then, and still does now - speaking out about climate change, or taking a lead when it comes to the display of human remains. So the museum's new logo encapsulates some of that.”
Michael Smith, the founder of Cog Design, which created the visual identity for Canterbury’s the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, says the agency asks staff to bring in two objects during the workshop phrase.
“One to represent the existing museum, and one that represents their vision for the future,” he says. “This throws up all sorts of interesting discussion points and gets everyone in the mood to think in metaphors.”
Cog then produced boards of visual cues and asked staff to vote on which they think best “describes” the museum’s personality. “It can be really useful for us to see how staff react to a style of photography, or combinations of colours, or the front,” he says.
Cog created the Big B logo for the Beaney, which is an “aperture” through which the museum could show anything. Smith says the agency spent a lot of time refining the B and its curves to make it look “friendly, approachable but clear”.
“That’s why we choose a bold Sans Serif type face,” he adds. “We also created a dotted line that could be used elsewhere in the museum and on communications as a motif.”
Rules of the game
For Stubbs, the things to avoid are “design without proper thought behind it” and trends.
“If an identity follows a trend, it also follows that it will date very quickly,” she says. “We try to create identities that will last, crucial for publicly funded organisations who won’t have the money to rebrand every few years.”
Smith says that some analogies have now become so universal that they are meaningless. “We have a rule that nobody can use a jigsaw as an idea.,” he says. “You can apply a jigsaw metaphor to almost any situation.”
The increase in museum touchpoints, such as social media profiles and website, means that logos increasingly have to be flexible enough to work in different place and across different devices.
“Most people have realised that you can’t have a one-size-fits all badge that you stick on things,” Smith says.
For that reason, the current emphasis is on identities that can be adapted. “Something that can make best use of a 9mm circle in the Twitter app, and the 90-metre hoarding that temporarily masks your capital redevelopment,” Smith says.
But he adds: “The pendulum seems to have swung away from identities that ignored logos completely, instead focusing on consistent typography and rigid information layout. People seem to have realised that those solutions only work if you have the resources to keep investing in them, most museums don’t.”
Anyone can create a logo but not everyone can create one that sums up a brand in a visual way and can stand the test of time. Stubbs says: “Good design starts not with drawing, but with research, thought and – crucially – an under-the-skin understanding of an organisation.”
