Museum Logos: A Natural History

When I was looking for a project to do I first started with aquariums. But I realized that there was no originality. They primarily were all circular to represent a wave and usually had blue and green colors in it, occasionally there was a marine animal depicted as well. Including sea otters, orcas, octopi, and sharks. But then I came up with museums, and since that has a wide variety of options I narrowed it down to the natural science museums.

I noticed one big commonality and was very disappointed by it. Today I will take you through ten different natural science/history museums from around the world. I will of course say what I liked, but a lot of it I didn’t like and found many of the logos very lacking.

Up first is the Smithsonian National museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Now, each Smithsonian has their own logo, but the central idea and design stem from each other. For the Natural History museum, it’s a simple blue color (#0B7F8C) “NATIONAL MUSEUM of NATURAL HISTORY” and the Smithsonian logo beneath it. Very basic, and since the Smithsonian museums are branches of the Smithsonian Institution it makes sense to implement this concept. Could they have included a simple design like an outline of something to each museum, yes, and it would have been so simple. For example they could have had a T-rex outline for natural science, a plane for the Air & Space, and a dancer for the Freer Gallery of Art.

Next on our list is the American Museum of Natural History in New York, NY.

Now this museum was recently rebranded in honor of their 150th anniversary. A “150 years” with a person standing in the zero. It was white and black, and quite frankly they should have at least had the decency to add some color. The design isn’t my favorite, but since it isn’t just a block of text, I’ll take it. I did look for some reason as to why they put the person in the zero but I couldn’t find any and it was just confusing.

Overall, the American museums were very underwhelming and quite boring.

Next up we head to the English museums, first up is the British Museum in London, United Kingdom.

The logo is black and white, the spacing is quite nice, and I like the font. However, when I first saw it I instantly thought of an early 2000’s rom-com. But since it looks nice on products and the text isn’t all the same font size, they may have a pass. I’m not sure if this falls under Gestalt’s law of similarity or not, but it certainly feels like it.

One of the most famous museums is the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

Again quite boring, but textually it looks clean, the spacing works, it’s all on one line and the font works well. For the most part I’m seeing a pattern of text. That’s it, almost like the designers didn’t have a choice, or the museum curators went, “oh who cares, it’s not like anyone will see it.” Even though it’s printed on all of their products and is one of the most famous museums in the world, oh well, c’est la vie.

Our next stop is the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece.

The Acropolis Museum at least had the decency to somewhat try. An olive green “A” and a stretched out white “M” over a dark blue background. The colors are #B0AB00, #FFFFFF, and #2C2A7D respectively. I like their use of different colors for the letters instead of making it one full and connected line. I think they didn’t need to put the M how it is, they could have put it to the side of the A. However, it does add some much appreciated depth to the logo.

After that is the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

Now the National Museum of Ireland actually put in some thought to their design. The light blue of the background is #4AB7D1 and it makes the logo look very bright and happy. First up on their design is the word “museum” in a font that is supposed to look like traditional gaelic, all in lowercase. “National Museum of Ireland” is a standard serif font. But the last part is the most interesting “Ard-Mhúsaem na hÉireann,” I think it adds originality to the logo. My primary criticism for this logo is that the blue is a bit bright, it sort of reminds me of an off brand Tiffany blue. So while the logo is just text, they added enough difference to the font and styles that it works for them.

Next we head to Vienna, Austria, to take a look at the Museum of Natural History- Vienna.

Again they use a serif font, which seems to be a popular choice for museums lately. The left side of the “n” and the right side of the “m” drop down so that the letters are settled on top of three blocks. I don’t get this design and my brain can only focus on the blocks, I even missed the “naturhistorisches museum wien” at the bottom for the longest time.

I noticed that many of the logos rely on text, which can work if done properly. However, it feels more like the companies simply didn’t want to put in the effort.

Then down under we have the Melbourne Museum in Carlton, Australia.

At first I liked the logo, but now looking at it I’m just confused. I understand the concept “mm” but it doesn’t go down again and it just looks like squiggly lines. There is no real uniformity. I think if they would have just done “MM” it would have worked. I like the colors they chose though.

Next up is the Beijing Museum of Natural History in Beijing, China.

This is the logo I really liked. It worked well, was very original and different from the others. It wasn’t just text, they also had an actual graphic design incorporated. Only two from my final list had that. One thing that I liked is that the logo is circular, which makes it versatile for social media platforms. The logo is circular with the world in the background and a leaf in the foreground. The leaf has an outline of what I would think is a bird. The Beijing Museum of Natural History is also written in Chinese as well on the logo.

Note: apologies for the poor quality, I had to screenshot it from their website and it was very small.

Finally we have the Museo de la Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This logo is also really interesting. I like the olive green they chose. The design itself is also interesting, it looks almost like a spiral seashell. However, I think they didn’t need to stack everything on top. I would have liked to see some more white space. I also wouldn’t have gone with that font, I think that it looks too uniform with the lines and I would have made it a serif font. If they really like that font I would suggest putting the design to the left of the words and justifying text to the left.

Honestly I would have liked to see some more color variety from the museums, yes half of them had color, but that left half looking plain. I just would have liked to see more effort from the museums’ graphic designers. Now while one rule from our lessons was to “keep it simple stupid,” I feel like many of them are too simple that they become unmemorable. Which is the exact opposite effect visual designs should have.