Breathing New Life Into a Historic Museum

REGINALD F. LEWIS MUSEUM
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The Reginald F. Lewis Museum is the premier experience and best resource for historical and current art, achievements, and inspiration about the lives of African-American Marylanders.
The Lewis’s exhibits explore local African-American heritage through themes of family, inventions, revolutions, community, slavery & art. Their exhibits, collections, and events are ground-breaking as they include fresh and innovative works from local and national artists. They were also seeking a creative partner to redesign their website and brand identity to expand their mission and share the wonderful work they’re performing in the community. When the Lewis reached out to us, we were excited to create a fresh presence for this landmark in Baltimore.

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PROJECT OVERVIEW
BRAND IDENTITY
website
Overview

the plan

In order to remake a logo the Museum held dear since its 1985 inception, we maintained the bold and meaningful color palette, red, yellow, and black, while creating the new design on the futuristic direction of the Museum. Together with the Lewis team, we worked to combine their vision with an understanding of the existing landscape of museums supporting African-American achievements in America. By examining the space close-up and performing stakeholder interviews, we were able to build a memorable and unique logo and brand identity that boosted the Lewis’s mission and local and national impact.

the impact

  • Boosted Museum attendance with an easy-to-use responsive website that entices guests to visit
  • Enhanced Museum’s mission with an extensive online showcase of artifacts, programs, events and current exhibits
  • Created a cohesive brand identity to strengthen the Museum’s visual and verbal brand
  • Facilitated easier donation and event sign-up process

Brand Identity

The unconventional design of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum served as the inspiration for the Museum’s new logo design. The architects used bold geometry and vibrant colors to represent the Museum, Maryland, and its diversity. We wanted the new logo to embody the same foundation.

logo design

When redesigning the Reginald’s logo, we kept the color palette and choose a modern font that’s round and easy to read – both digitally and in print. We also ensured that the chosen font had weight variations to accentuate parts of the name in the logo.

Focused on keeping the integrity of the original logo design while signifying the Museum’s progressive transformation, the Lewis logo incorporates vibrant and impactful research-driven 2D design.

The original logo design held deep significance to Museum leadership, the Board, and community. While we modernized the logo, we wanted to breathe new life into the new design and still maintain the deeper meaning.

As beautifully intricate as the building is, we wanted a logo design that was uncomplicated and easy to replicate on marketing materials and merchandise. The 2D design presents the organization as being progressive, modern, and creative.

SEE THE BUILDING-INSPIRED LOGO IN ACTION

original logo

new logo

brand style guide

While the Museum had a central color palette, the shades were inconsistent. We created a 30-page brand style guide to create consistency within their visuals and marketing materials. The brand style guide simplifies their graphic design output.

brand mood board

The Brand Mood Board guides the visual direction of the overall project. The Museum wanted to bridge the gap between Black history and the future of the culture through art and activities that build the Black community. We curated pictures of the Museum-named philanthropist, Reginald F. Lewis, with images that represented the Museum’s future, such as children looking at the Museum’s art, modern text, futuristic architecture.

COLOR PALETTE

A defined color palette allows the Museum to easily stay on brand and create in-house marketing materials easier. This saves the organization time & resources.

SEE THE COLOR PALETTE N ACTION

LOGO TEXT

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BODY TEXT

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HEADINGS/QUOTES

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The State of Maryland’s African-American history is illuminated by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. The rich & cultured history displayed within the Museum is evident throughout the Museum. We bought the same passion, dedication, and energy into the new brand identity and website design, which is communicated in their message, visuals, and features.

Website Design

We updated the Reginald’s platform to the Content Management System (CMS), WordPress, which is expansive and has an interface that’s easy for the Reginald staff to maintain.

As for the design, we balanced the bold color palette through color block placement that accentuated sections of the website. The Reginald has a library of event, staff, and program photos that we integrated with stock imagery. We distinguished Reginald-provided photos from stock photos by using a black & white treatment on the selected photos.

We also integrated donation, email marketing, calendar, and art collection archival tools to expand the website’s use and functionality.
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