City Museum Branding

City Museum is hard to define—even with a great brand.

A cross between an art exhibit, playground and museum, the St. Louis, Missouri attraction draws visitors and attention from around the world.

It’s full of climbable, larger-than-life sculptures, winding tunnels and interactive exhibits, all made from repurposed materials that cities have left behind. A school bus and airplane hang off the exterior of the building. There’s a 10-story slide. Walls are made from old bedpans. It’s home to the world’s biggest pair of tighty whities. Visitors aren’t only encouraged to explore, they’re almost forced to: there’s little signage to indicate where things are or how to find them.

But as unique and well-known as the attraction is, City Museum’s brand wasn’t keeping up. With a decades-old logo, and little else in terms of a visual brand identity, City Museum struggled with maintaining a modern image. The organization asked us to create a refreshed brand to help it stay profitable and growing.

The new brand needed to stay true to City Museum’s rebellious spirit, while still making it fresh with contemporary type, graphics and colors.

The updated logo instantly communicates the fun and adventure awaiting visitors at City Museum. Contained in a vertical rectangle, the logomark subtly represents the building itself, and variations highlight the exhibits inside (and outside, and on top).

A bright new color palette, brand patterns inspired by the textures and materials found throughout the space, graphic treatments and fun icons round out the visual identity. We also developed a new brand language and a tagline to serve as the foundation for future marketing messaging.

With a refreshed brand just in time for the organization’s 25th anniversary, City Museum now has what it needs for a strong—and weirdly wonderful—future.