True North unveils final three museum identities in five-stage brief from Bristol City Council

The new identities (pictured), which have been produced for Bristol Archives, The Red Lodge Museum and The Georgian House Museum, were created as part of a wider project that involved the consultancy rebranding Bristol Museum & Art Gallery and new attraction M Shed last year.

True North was originally appointed in May 2008 after a tender process which shortlisted eight consultancies. True North was chosen because of the strength of similar projects that it had worked on and its ability to ’get under the skin of the services’, says Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives deputy head of commercial and customer services Rebecca Burton.

The consultancy began the project by rebranding the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, moving on to the larger task of the creative for M Shed before finishing with the three other museums.

True North creative director Alan Herron says, ’People in Bristol knew that this new museum was being built, but they were puzzled as to whether it was a replacement, so we decided to work on Bristol Museum first.’

To brand the final three museums, True North spent time getting to know the spaces and exhibits, and talking to stakeholders about the museums.

Burton says, ’We wanted True North to develop identities that would last a lifetime and didn’t age very quickly.’

The marque for The Georgian House Museum shows the building’s facade and The Red Lodge’s logo features a key made from the museum’s name. Herron says, ’Red Lodge is an Elizabethan treasure that is hidden away, hence the lock and key.’

For the Bristol Archives logo, which features a cursor, True North was keen to move away from the idea of an archive as a repository of dusty documents. Herron says, ’We wanted to show the archive as something interactive, something you can use.’

The marques will be used on signage, promotional material and print publications, and will roll out over the next few months. True North has also created brand guidelines to advise the council’s in-house design team on how to use the identities.