Brooklyn Museum is celebrating its 200th anniversary with an expansive series of events including a two-day birthday celebration, an exhibition spotlighting Brooklyn artists, the launch of a mobile museum, and more. It’s also marking the milestone with a longer-term project: a new identity created by the museum’s in-house design team and local studio Other Means.

“The ways that audiences are engaging with museums are expanding, and we needed a new brand that meets the demands of the day, honours our rich history, and brings a whole lot of energy,” say the directors of Brooklyn Museum.

The architecture of the building, which began life as a library, provided the foundations for the new visual identity.

Wrapped around the exterior are the names of influential philosophers, playwrights and poets, which are separated by circles. This visual motif has been carried over to the wordmark, which is bookended by dots, and will recur in other touchpoints and in a variety of forms.

The refresh also involves a new palette combining muted greys inspired by the limestone building, along with welcome bright accents.

The new wordmark also features interlocking ‘O’s, as well as ‘M’s and ‘U’s joined by a ligature akin to The Met’s redesigned logo, helping to convey a “multiplicity of ideas, identities, and points of origin”, according to the museum. The ligatures concept will be used elsewhere in the identity, including in the tagline ‘This is the spot’.

The new identity will start to appear in the coming months across the physical space, a digital campaign, a new website, and merchandise.

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