Jewish Museum Identity

The Jewish Museum is located in a beautiful seven-story mansion in the Upper East side of Manhattan. It is the preeminent museum in the United States devoted to art and Jewish culture. The Jewish Museum has a renowned collection of 30,000 objects, making it the third largest of its kind in the world, distinguished by its breadth and quality. The museum’s reach expands to a diverse audience through extensive interdisciplinary programming and contemporary exhibitions.

Our goal in rebranding the museum was to connect the historic and contemporary, and engage multiple visitor generations. The new identity system we created is founded on ‘sacred geometry’, an ancient geometric system from which the Star of David was formed. The entire branding system is drawn on this grid, from the word and logo mark, to dozens of patterns, icons, typography, and illustrations. To address photography as part of the system, we built a processing app that turns a photo or webcam stream into a Jewish Museum illustration.

Using these systems, we designed stationery, packaging, advertising campaigns, promotional materials, and an immersive new website which will launch in June. This system invites surprise and flexibility across all media, while always unified in visual language.

Sagmeister & Walsh, 2013