The Kröller-Müller Museum offers a unique experience of art, architecture and nature. It combines the second largest collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world with the biggest sculpture garden in Europe. The museum wishes to reach a bigger and wider audience. Edenspiekermann developed a new brand identity inspired by elements of nature such as light, shadow and movement. This is how we brought together the inside and outside experience of visiting the museum. The result shows a dynamic, typographic logo and a colourful, flexible identity with which the museum can present itself strongly and recognisably.
About the visual identity
What struck us was how much more the Kröller-Müller Museum has to offer, besides its art. The surroundings and environment play an important role in the experience of the visitor. The museum is located in a beautiful, green area and its huge windows really draw the nature inside.
Outside in the sculpture garden, you’ll find a large part of the art collection. So depending on the weather and season, and depending on whether you look from the outside in, or the inside out, the museum always has a new experience to offer. This interplay between art, nature and architecture was our starting point for the identity. Influenced by light and movement, the characters become sculptural typography which can be animated subtly.
We used Kris Sowersby’s beautifully crafted contemporary typeface Karbon and brought it to life with the help of Cinema 4D software.
One of the first visible expressions of the new identity is the campaign we developed to celebrate the renewed presentation of all the museums’ Van Gogh paintings and drawings. Edenspiekermann was also responsible for the visual design of the exhibition and brought together Forbo Flooring and the Kröller-Müller to create the customized yellow carpeting in the Van Gogh zone of the museum.
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Comments
Such a simple idea, but works very well. Great work!
Really nice work… And I know the museum well, great fit. I’d love to see more of their process though… that’d be invaluable to me personally.
Great bit of branding, I love how the lettering just jumps out at you.
Love it. Modern, timeless, and fun.
Very nice! I live close to the Krüller-Möller and I think it fits very nicely. The open and sunny look reflects the space, the architecture and maybe even the Dutch character.
Am I the only one who totally hates this? It stands out, but for the wrong reasons. Drop Shadows a-go-go, illegible typography, extremely poor colour choices, it’s so extremely messy… Would have been fun in the 90’s when 3D effects would add something to the total randomness in post-modern graphic design, but in the modern day and age it’s just very very poor creativity I think.
I have to agree with John to a certain extent. The 3D fonts become hard on the eyes after a while, at least for me and, to be very frank, a little bothersome and tiresome.
I think using the architecture is a great idea (it’s a lovely building in lovely surroundings) I just think it could have been done in a more effective way, using those great big windows as the focal point, perhaps. Right now it’s a big door.
I’m also with John in being a little perplexed about the colour choices. I don’t really see the connection to “elements of nature…light, shadow and movement” except for the shadow.
Beautiful work. Reflecting space and architecture and using light while maintaining a modern and elegant look make it a a job well done for this museum.
In that same vein, on the other side of the ocean, this is certainly worth taking a look at
http://gizmodo.com/the-age-of-the-anti-logo-why-museums-are-shedding-thei-510739591
I think the MIT and the new Whitney identities are of a completely different level than this Eden-Spiekerman turd : )
John
I completely agree. Except for the turd :)
The roll out of the branding is beautiful and well crafted… The logo has too many tricks…
I feel like they took an average idea and pushed it too far. The “Cai Guo Qiang” poster just feels messy with all the drop shadows and opening letters. If the effect was limited and they had other things going on for the brand I could see some point in including it, but as it is it seems like a blanket solution to make it seem “branded.”