Centraal Museum visual identity

Centraal Museum in Utrecht is one of the leading visual arts institutes in the Netherlands. It has 5 very diverse collections, ranging from classic paintings to local artifacts and contemporary fashion. By the time we were invited to create a new brand identity this diversity had resulted in a fragmented and unclear brand expression.

We had always felt that the name ‘Centraal Museum’ was exceptionally strong. With the museum’s new strategy of operating more actively as a cultural hub it only increased in relevance. By coincidence the museum is placed geographically exactly in the middle of the Netherlands. So when we put a circle on the map to mark the museum’s location, the idea behind the new brand was born.

The identity follows up on a previous look by Thonik which revolved around a logo, built with five symmetrically arranged lowercase c’s from Avenir. Lesley Moore’s new direction replaces the middle c by a large colored circle – with a wide choice of possible colors. In all applications, it is connected with dashed and solid lines to a varying number of text blocks in different sizes, always set in Franklin Gothic – either set “Capitalized” using its regular width or set in in all caps Extra Condensed, which is also used for the museum logo.

The museum website, developed by Fabrique, uses ITC Franklin Gothic.