Visual Language - The British Museum

On our trip to London we had to meet at the British Museum to collect our brief. Fortunately, I turned up a little early so got to explore the museum beforehand. 

I love looking at art, and especially contemporary art. Exhibiting at the museum during my visit was an exhibition about witches and witchcraft. These images dated back from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. I found the dark twisted illusions that artists produced back then to tell a shocking story about how uneducated people were back then about certain issues we can comprehend today. It is also apparent how differing our views on religion are - nowadays religion is so varied and very relaxed, whereas back then religion was taken very seriously. This look into the contrast on modern day life versus previous years is reflected through the rest of the museum, in the different exhibits also.

The British Museum also has a large courtyard, called the Great Court. The Great Court was designed by Fosters and Partners, and uses natural light and white walls to create a large setting for the information centre of the museum, as well as a café and a few shops. This was easily my favourite area within the museum and clearly very popular with many other visitors, as it was clearly the busiest area. The Great Court also acts as the central hub for the museum connecting the different exhibition rooms together and also connecting to the main entrance and the rear entrance. This makes a clean and simplistic way of connecting all the differing events, and gives a clear and professional appearance to the museum. 

However, this clear appearance of the museum disappears shortly with a mix match of logo images and contradicting text fonts. More businesses keep a consistent brand image, to make themselves more coherent - the same sort of practice would be expected of a museum. However, The British Museum aren't really sticking to this general rule of thumb. On their website they have a more distinct and although some may call it 'boring' I personally feel a more appropriate logo, considering the nature of the business. 

Despite the more professional text being used on the website, within the museum and on their bags given to the public, a more rounded softer text is used. I believe that the second text font looks very similar to the one used by The National History Museum of South Kensington, and this may be on purpose to link the two museums together.

Considering the nature of the business, being a place of education and knowledge, I would have expected to have seen a more coherent and professional brand image and visual language.

Information found via;

http://mdem.org.uk/british-museum-2014-knowledge-exchange-programme/#.VGjVqPmsXuI

http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/the_museums_story/architecture/great_court.aspx

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/degree-courses/8580585/Architecture-degree-course-guide.html

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

http://www.siftdigital.co.uk/work