National Gallery debuts new branding
By Adnews Staff
The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa has undertaken a rebranding initiative. It consists of a new animated logo and corporate colours, intended to reflect the “strategic behavioural changes that the gallery has set out to embody.” According to the gallery, the branding is intended to depict the venue as “inviting, alive, open and dimentional.” According to th gallery, the visual identity was developed in consultation with a group of Algonquin elders from the unceded territory upon which the building is located. The branding was also developed in collaboration with Area 17 of New York. The branding is being introduced with an online video.
“We wanted a new visual identity that would ground the institution forever to the land, water and sky, to the beauty of the visual arts and to each other,” said Rosemary Thompson, vice-president of corporate affairs, public affairs and marketing at the National Gallery. “When we started this project, it was important to walk through the gallery to find a circle because it is such an important symbol for Indigenous Peoples. When you walk into the Scotiabank Great Hall you notice the floor is circular, and if you look up and out at the sky, you see the incredible glass mosaic that Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie designed, and you know this place is the heart of the gallery. Area 17's creative leadership listened, and created something dynamic, ever-changing, inspired by the circle, the drum, beadwork, the northern lights, the gallery's remarkable art and architecture and the more than 300 interviews that we did.”