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The British Museum will undergo ‘the most significant transformation, both architectural and intellectual, happening in any museum globally’ with the launch of a rebranding project alongside its overall development masterplan
Tom Anstey | Planet Attractions | 08 Jan 2025
The British Museum is set to gain a new brand identity
The British Museum is working on a significant rebrand, with the institution launching a £150,000 (US$187,000, €181,000) tender for a project which will ultimately see it develop a new visual identity.
The British Museum is the UK’s most-visited and the world’s fifth-most visited museum, with most recent numbers showing 6.7 million people coming through its doors in 2023.
Located in the British capital of London, the museum is in the middle of a “complete transformation”, which will see it review and re-imagine its brand and its visual and ‘vocal’ identity.
Last updating its logo in 2012, the museum is already working with an agency to conduct a brand audit, while the newly-released tender will see a yet-to-be-selected partner translate its new branding into “a coherent and compelling visual and vocal identity.”
“This identity should comprise a clear system that conveys the brand idea and narrative in such a way that it can be used and applied consistently to internal and external products and services, across our many audiences, locally, nationally, and globally,” said the museum tender.
Once selected, the chosen party will take the museum’s new brand identity and make it “flexible and adaptable”. As such it will be able to utilise this identity on branded merchandise, exhibition posters, staff uniforms, social media and more.
Alongside its rebrand, the museum is undergoing a significant physical redevelopment, with its masterplan featuring new welcome facilities, and a collection storage and research centre. A third of the museum’s gallery spaces are also to be redesigned.
The museum was hit with significant controversy last year, when it emerged that thousands of artefacts in its collection were “missing, stolen or damaged.”
Since then, it welcomed a new museum director in Nicholas Cullinan, who joined from the National Portrait Gallery. His appointment followed the resignation of Hartwig Fischer as a result of the thefts.
The museum sees this year as the opportune time to reimagine itself, with Cullinan saying in July 2024 that the museum would undergo “the most significant transformation, both architectural and intellectual, happening in any museum globally”.
“Increasing activity around the museum’s masterplan and the arrival of a new museum director in 2024 makes now the right moment to consider our vision and values, review our brand and move forward with a compelling new approach to how we communicate and present ourselves,” said the tender. “The Brand and Identity Project will deliver this transformation.”
The deadline to apply for the nine-month project is February 3rd, 2025. See the tender here
Museums and galleries
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