Early next month, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco will unveil a new brand developed in collaboration with global brand and innovation firm Wolff Olins.
One of the largest and most respected collections of Asian art in the Western world, the museum has long been considered San Francisco's "best kept secret." With a new leader and vision in place, the museum partnered with Wolff Olins to develop a brand to increase its relevance with a wider audience and build a more prominent and active role in the art and museum worlds. An additional role for brand was to help the museum stay on course through the financial difficulty of 2010 and set the museum on a path of sustained financial stability - and growth.
The new brand is designed to help the museum build experiences that use art, exhibitions and programming to make connections across cultures, and through time. The idea is to unlock the potential of its collection (spanning 6,000 years) to inspire new art and new thinking by provoking reflection, dialogue, and debate.
Additionally Wolff Olins has designed a new visual expression for the brand - an upturned, three-dimensional "A" mark. The bold logo reflects the museum's new perspective and invitation to all to engage in Asian art and culture in new and surprising ways.
Visitors will start to see this new identity beginning October 21 with the launch of its latest exhibition "Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts," curated by the Victoria & Albert Museum of London.