Responses by hat-trick design
Background: Nationalmuseum is Sweden’s museum of art and design. Its collections comprise of paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints from the years 1500-1900 and applied arts, design and portraits from the early Middle Ages up until present day. Working together with Jane Wentworth Associates and all the Museum’s staff, we developed a strategy to redefine what a museum of the future could be, crafting meaningful encounters between people and art. This bold vision was the inspiration for a new visual identity, which created a dynamic platform for the future, while respecting the Museum’s rich heritage.
Reasoning: At the heart of the new identity, there is a logotype reflecting the Museum’s distinctive architecture, featuring a ligature of an n and an m to reflect the connection between past and future. Along with celebrating the brilliance and diversity of the collections through bold uses of imagery, the balance of old and new is also maintained through classical letterforms that are applied in a contemporary way. Both serif (Chronicle) and sans serif (Akzidenz) fonts create both consistency and flexibility across a huge range of applications.
Challenges: Developing the flexibility to show the sheer variety of the imagery from their collections was a real design challenge. We came up with the idea of the logo adapting to reflect the color of the image it was placed onto, so it would feel more integrated in application.
Favorite details: We came up with a branding system to strike the balance between the past and the present. The architecture also does the same, using a combination of the refurbished traditional architectural details alongside modern interventions, so the solution felt very much part of the whole experience for the visitors.
Time constraints: We had designed the branding in advance as the capital refurbishment of the building was going to take a long time. We needed to make sure that our designs looked modern but timeless, and make sure they didn’t look out of date for the relaunch.
Specific demands: Most of the application of the brand identity was done by the in-house design team, so making sure they were engaged and informed was key to the roll-out and future success.
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