UCL Culture
Image: UCL Culture
The department
UCL Culture is made up of the university’s museums, galleries, a public art programme, schools coordinators and a public engagement team. For the past three years I have advised on brand and created marketing materials that speak to their diverse audiences.
Research
I had the privilege of working in-house at UCL Culture for a year, giving me insight into how the department communicated its unique offering. It happened to be a year after they had undergone a major branding exercise, so was the perfect opportunity to try some new ideas that would enhance the existing visual presence on campus.
Learning
For a department with such broad needs and different voices, the idea of flexibility became paramount. The brand dictated the use of bold colour and typography, and as much as this stood out brilliantly across the university’s huge site, I saw it as my challenge to embrace the subtler stories, to create opportunities for the small details to come forward.
Museum wayfinding and Top 10 objects
With collections and artworks spread across the UCL site, a new set of printed leaflets was commissioned that would connect visitor’s experiences.
I created floorplans of all the museums and gallery spaces, along with information on key objects to discover.
Visual identity for the Grant Museum of Zoology’s challenging exhibition, Displays of Power.
The museum’s history revealed some difficult stories around colonialism and ethics around natural history collections more broadly, so the tone had to be considered. The collage approach I developed suggested the idea of layers of history and I hope strikes a balance between being beautiful and a little sombre.
Outcome
We now have a much more informed direction with which to market the department’s offering. Materials I have created over the past years are indicative of my style of working – respecting brand parameters, whilst keen to try new and imaginative things.