Responses by Anna Małeka, art director, TOFU Studio.

Background: The previous branding for the Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku (“National Museum of Gdańsk”, MNG) had been used for many decades. Over the years, the institution’s needs naturally changed; it needed a brand that would fit a digital environment, answer a wider range of responders, visually organize its complex structure and emphasize its modern approach. We had to create a solution that will not only fulfill all the above needs but would do it in the most trend-free way so that it could serve its purpose for the next several decades.

Design thinking: We wanted to focus on the simplest and most important role of a museum—presenting art and history to the viewers. As the previous MNG logo was a gothic-style window, we decided to leave this small link to the past and present the new MNG image as “the window to the world of art.” The logo’s elements create a flexible frame, adjusting its form to the vast variety of the museum’s historical collections.

Challenges: Undeniably, the biggest challenge was the fact that the MNG is not one but eight different departments—and is eager to expand to more in the future. All of these places present different artistic or historical artifacts, which naturally give a very wide range of stylistics that is presented in the materials. Our objective was to create a system that would be organized enough to systematize all of the museum’s materials, adjustable enough to enable the institution to grow in its structure in the future, yet modest enough not to overwhelm the work. We wanted the first priority to be the art depicted. I believe in projects like this: it’s especially important to keep in mind that the branding is being created for the brand—not the other way around.

Favorite details: It’s hard to talk about details in a project so minimalistic, but one of our favorite things is the combination of simple layouts with the elegant serif font. It doesn’t interfere with the order of the visual system, yet spices it up in a nice way.

Time constraints: Fortunately, our client was well aware of the time needed to finish a project like this from A to Z, so they reached out to us with enough time. We divided this time wisely into all the necessary stages, starting from workshops through building new strategy, preparing several ideas for the new visual system, and finalizing the best ideas with all the necessary guidelines and promotional materials.

Specific project demands: There were a lot of formal requirements we had to fulfill, although we were given a lot of trust when it came to creating visual solutions. Of course, we had many discussions with the client—joint attempts to bring this project to the highest level possible—but no decisions were forced on us in the designing process. But, being given this freedom to design makes things easier and much harder at the same time. When there are little visual restrictions, you have to impose them on your own so that they will answer best to all the brand’s needs.

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