Koto rebrands the Norton Museum of Art around where art meets life

Where Art Meets Life is the idea at the centre of Koto’s rebrand of the Norton Museum of Art – the recognition that the West Palm Beach institution is as much a place where art becomes part of everyday life as somewhere to look at it, taking visitors from gardens to galleries to evening events. The global creative agency was brought in for the brand strategy, the verbal and visual identity, and applications spanning posters, brochures, floor maps, advertising and website, at a moment when a further expansion with Foster + Partners is getting underway, and the museum is setting the stage for its next chapter. The idea came out of a week Koto spent inside the museum, exploring the archives, speaking with staff, meeting the architect and running ‘vox pops’ with visitors. What struck the team was the sheer range of experience on offer. “It’s art, but it’s also life. It’s a museum, but it’s also a community gathering place,” Senior Strategy Director Katie Hughes tells us. The positioning then crystallised around one line from the immersion: asked to name the museum’s biggest competitor, a stakeholder answered, ‘The beach.’ “It highlighted that the Norton isn’t simply competing with other museums,” Hughes explains. “It’s competing for people’s leisure time.” Part of the work was closing a gap between the museum and its own image, with the previous identity having fallen behind the reality of the institution. “When people visited, there was often this feeling of, ‘Wow, this is so much better than I expected,’” Design Director David Shatan-Pardo tells us. Koto’s ambition was to change that first encounter – to “move from being somewhere people discover by chance to somewhere people travel specifically to experience,” rather than a hidden gem stumbled on by visitors in town for the weather. That meant serving two audiences at once, the affluence associated with Palm Beach alongside communities that have not historically engaged with art institutions, and opening the door to newer visitors while keeping faith with existing ones. “You don’t need an art history degree to enjoy the Norton. Everyone should feel welcome,” Shatan-Pardo notes – a philosophy the museum already practised through its family programming and education work, and one the identity simply had to make visible.