Alphabetical’s brand for the Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries is packed with meaning

There’s an inherent tension between the ideas of creativity and war. How can a period of destruction also kindle creative expression? And yet, during times of conflict, artists, designers, filmmakers, writers and photographers have always gotten to work, in their attempt to capture the times they’ve lived through. A slice of this vivid history of modern war has now found a home in Imperial War Museum London’s (IWM) Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography (BAPF) Galleries, which showcases one of the most important and unique collections of 20th and 21st-century art, film and photography, created in times of unrest. To give the galleries a fresh and fitting look, IWM reached out to the neighbouring London-based branding agency Alphabetical – but the identity had to do more than just announce this new venture by the museum. “They wanted a brand that would challenge the perceptions of the museum branding as a whole – evolving it in practice – to reach newer, wider, younger audiences,” says the agency’s Creative Partner Tom Taylor. “They’re often seen as a old-fashioned museum of historical artefacts; they want to change that by reinvigorating the static nature of the iconic master brand through a new look and feel for the BAFP Galleries, making it more digital and giving it greater dynamic range across motion and print.” For a starting point, the team looked to the IWM identity itself “along with the bold simplicity of wartime posters,” notes Taylor. Building on the angular cuts of the logo, they crafted a system with shards of text and images, which feels like a fresher, yet natural extension of the museum’s visual language. This approach resonated symbolically too. “We are also really inspired by the stories of war – the lives displaced and rebuilt following conflict. So it’s really that conversation between conflict and creation that led to the graphic shards we came up with,” Taylor explains.