Museums and Brand Consistency

A recognisable museum identity can help people connect a website, leaflet or social post with the same organisation. This guide is about implementing an agreed brand in everyday materials. Begin with the museum’s mission, audience, existing design decisions and rights constraints; a colour palette alone is not a complete brand strategy.

Having consistent branding will also save your organisation lots of time in the long run. Instead of choosing from 1,000s of different colours, anyone who is creating something visual for your org will have a predefined colour palette and font selection with guidelines on how often to use said colours/font and where to use them as well. 

So – where to start with choosing colours and fonts? We will break it down for you and dissect all of the “designer” terms.

Specify colours for print and digital use

Start with the museum’s approved colours and decide how they will be used in real materials. Check that combinations work for the audience, content and medium, including legible text and sufficient contrast. If the identity needs redesigning, agree that scope with the people responsible rather than choosing a new palette from search results.

Colour associations vary with culture and context. The original chart illustrates possible associations, not universal meanings or evidence of why particular brands chose their colours. Test the museum’s own combinations with the people and formats they need to serve. The original illustration was credited to Canva.

Once you’ve decided on about 4-6 colours that you’d like to include in your brand colour palette, it’s time to note the CMYK and RGB values for each chosen colour. No, a mouse didn’t just run across the keyboard, these acronyms are commonly used by designers and mean the following:

CMYK – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black

RGB – Red, Green and Blue

These are terms that designers use when working in print (CMYK) and working in digital (RGB). Cyan, magenta, yellow and black are the colours used in a printer and therefore all colours created need to have a designated percentage of each of those four colours included. The same goes for digital. Computer pixels are made up of red, green and blue colours. All colours that will appear on a screen are made up of a percentage of each of those colours.

Whether you work with an in-house designer or you outsource your graphic design, identifying these colours will pay-off in the long-term and make sure that all of your content comes out with consistent coloration and branding. 

A spot colour is a separately specified printing ink, while process printing builds colours from combinations such as CMYK. Pantone is one system for specifying colours. Record the relevant print specification and agreed digital HEX/RGB equivalents; a digital approximation may not reproduce a spot colour exactly. Paper, ink, screen and colour settings affect the result. Agree a proof with the printer when colour matching matters, especially when you prepare consistent print materials.

At this point, you should have your colours chosen (possibly with pantone names) and CMYK and RGB values identified…. You do? Okay, super! Now, we will move onto defining which colours are your primary colours and which ones are secondary. To be clear, we aren’t talking about primary colours as in red, blue and yellow, we are talking about the colours that you will use most often in your branding. These colours should be immediately recognisable as belonging to your brand. The secondary colours that you choose will be the ones that are accents/pops of colour. They should be used less often than your primary colours. 

A great way to illustrate how often colours will be used within your branding is to create either a colour chart or a colour wheel. This visual is extremely easy to create and helpful in allowing different departments in your organisation to create their own content and stay on-brand. We created the images below in InDesign, but you could use lots of different applications to choose your colours and create a colour wheel/chart. 

A palette tool can help explore combinations, but record the approved output in the brand kit rather than relying on an app-specific project. Include colour values, permitted pairings and examples of primary and accent use. Check contrast in the actual layout.

Choose readable, licensed fonts

Now, it’s time to get full-FONTal… Hey, it’s been a good while since we’ve cracked an awful pun like that – just give us this one 🙂 Like colours, the type of fonts that you use can indicate whether you are a fun, sophisticated, serious, savvy or eclectic brand – maybe all of them! It’s important to align the fonts that you use with the way that you want your brand to be perceived and the type of followers/visitors/customers that you want to engage with. 

When choosing fonts for your brand, there are two primary categories of fonts to consider; serif and sans serif (exhibited below)

Serif – Fonts that have a “tail”, or little distinguishing curve at the end of the letters. These little “tails” as we so expertly called them are also known as “serifs”

Sans Serif – This term encompasses all fonts that do not have serifs, so, fonts that are typically very modern and sleek. 

Serif and sans-serif combinations are options, not a mandatory formula. Choose heading and body styles that remain legible at the sizes you use, support the languages needed and establish a clear hierarchy. Check line spacing and fallback fonts as well as the typeface.

The worked example uses different styles for the heading, subheading and body. Its useful lesson is hierarchy: readers should be able to identify the main message and supporting information. Test that hierarchy in your museum’s own materials rather than treating this pairing as a universal rule.

Now, don’t get the impression that design with colour and fonts is ALL rules and no play. There is certainly some room in the museum marketing field for having some fun with fonts. All good things in moderation, right? Below please find some examples of eclectic fonts along with the label of the category that they fall into.

Decorative or script faces may work for a short heading but be difficult to read in a long paragraph. Judge each typeface in context, including small screens and readers with different access needs. Do not assume every slab-serif face is unsuitable for body text.

Check the licence for each font and intended use, including print, web, apps and sharing editable files with suppliers. An Adobe ID alone does not establish entitlement to every font. Consult the provider’s current terms and Adobe’s font-licensing guidance where relevant. Keep licence records with the approved assets and confirm that collaborators have the access they need.

Build accessible templates and image rules

SO – we’ve now got our colour palettes sorted as well as our fonts. It’s time to put it all together into a complete digital branding kit. Below you’ll see our museum branding kit which is complete with fonts (serif and sans serif) as well as our chosen colours (RGB and CMYK) and finally, our colour chart illustrating how often the brand colours should be used. If you’re working with an outside graphic design team, they will LOVE you for putting this together and sending it to them! 

I bet at the beginning of the article, you would have thought you’d never be able to create something like this… Well, here you go! You now have all of the elements needed to create a branding kit of your own.

A brand kit earns its place when someone outside the marketing team can use it correctly. Include an event-promotion example showing the title, date, admission information and booking link, alongside approved colour combinations and type sizes. Test it on a small phone screen as well as in print. Keep the editable template, logo files and font-licence information together, and name the person responsible for updates so an old version does not become the museum’s unofficial standard.

Specify logo clear space and permitted variants, image style and credits, tone of voice and readable template layouts. Show examples for tickets, events and access information. Use the kit to create museum graphics and video and apply the brand to a museum website.

Armed with your branding kit and the applications needed to make your own custom branded graphics and content, it’s time to personalise all of your digital pages and platforms. For example, does your Twitter profile picture match your Facebook page? Are the colours consistent across all of your social media pages and website pages? What about fonts? 

Keep the main assets recognisable across channels, but adapt the layout to each placement. The social-size infographic below comes from the original 2020 article; it is historical and should not be used as a current specification. Check the relevant platform’s live dimensions and preview the finished asset before publishing.

Keep staff and partners using the same assets

Your homework is to work with your organisation to create/refine your branding kit. Are the fonts that you’ve been using really speaking to your desired audience(s)? What about the fonts? A little refresh can help to raise the profile of your organisation and allow your posts to stand out in user’s newsfeeds. Developing a branding kit may seem like the sole responsibility of the person who is in charge of marketing, but it’s important that all voices in your organisation are happy with the look of the branding kit and realise the importance of developing an organisational tool such as this. Having everyone on board from the beginning will also help your team to realise how important branding is and that it’s something that they will have to incorporate into their work as well!

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