Someone rebrands National Maritime Museum

Someone was appointed as brand strategist and identity consultant following a four-way pitch in April 2010 to re-brand and rename The National Maritime Museum, The Royal Observatory, Peter Harrison Planetarium and The Queen’s House.

The identity uses a splash image to reflect the global reach of discoveries about navigation, timekeeping, astronomy and technology made in Greenwich.

The splash has difference colour variations to denote the Museum’s different sites, using sea-blue for the Maritime Museum, gold for the Queen’s House and Royal purple for the Royal Observatory.

Karl Randall, senior designer at Someone says, ‘We wanted to make as big a splash as possible for the Museum, so we decided to create a 21st-century image rendered entirely in CGI which would give us the opportunity to animate and light it, creating a flexible brand world that could evolve and adapt over time.’

David Law, co-founder of Someone, says, ‘The best part is that people see different things in the splash – some see a crown, others see a ship, there’s even a star constellation amongst the droplets.

‘We decided that it would be more reflective of the diverse offer of the group to keep these elements subtle, so you see a splash first and foremost, then maybe something else at a second glance – like seeing shapes in clouds.’

The branding will be seen across all touchpoints including uniforms, tickets and merchandise. Someone is retained as brand guardian and will create the year one campaign advertising.

Kevin Fewster, Royal Museums Greenwich director, says ‘This is the most important year for the National Maritime Museum since it opened in 1937. The new brand identity sets out to reflect these dynamic changes — that will run across all the four sites and programmes.’

The Sammy Ofer Wing has been designed by Danish architect CF Møller with Purcell Miller Tritton, and other consultancies involved in the project incliude United Visual Artists, which has worked on exhibition design; Make It Clear which has worked on signage and wayfinding; Real Studios which has worked on gallery design; The Plant, which has worked on digital signage and BVA, which has worked on the digital elements and website.

Kin has worked on an interactive lounge for the new wing, and the Light Surgeons has also worked on exhibition design.