Design Museum – Identity, 2003 | Graphic Thought Facility (original) (raw)

Founded in London in 1989 as the first museum of modern design, the Design Museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design.

When commissioning this identity, Alice Rawsthorn, then the Design Museum’s new director, asked for something ‘more engaging, dramatic and provocative’ to reflect the institution’s own eclectic definition of design.

GTF worked with illustrator Kam Tang, juxtaposing simple typography with an exuberant and flexible array of line illustrations, suggestive of the various disciplines, genres and ‘isms’ of design.

Since its inception in 2003, the annual Designer of the Year competition has used the Design Museum’s own identity. The 2006 exhibition saw Kam Tang’s illustrations cut from laminated wall panels and reconfigured as a kinetic mobile at the show’s entrance.

Mobile construction: Timothy Rose