Heide Museum of Modern Art identity
28.05.2007
Established in 1981, Heide Museum of Modern Art is one of Australia’s leading public art museums. Prior to being converted to a museum, Heide was the home for John and Sunday Reed who were champions of the modernist art movement in Australia.
Renowned for its close association with many iconic Australian artists, particularly those of Australian modernism (Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval) as well as later generations including Charles Blackman, Mirka Mora and the Imitation Realists, Heide Museum of Modern Art is home to one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary Australian art.
The objective of this project was to create an identity for Heide Museum of Modern Art that constantly evolved over time, rather than a corporatized rebranding with a multitude of constrictions.
John Reed’s handwritten Heide script was an existing element of the identity that needed to be retained. A structure was developed for the entity name whereby the choice typography becomes a variable and the script remains as a constant. This allows Heide to speak with a different voice depending on the subject matter and the audience.
The separate exhibition campaigns (which are the renewable life of Heide) build around the exhibition content and develop an image to themselves rather than the corporate entity.
Although budgets are minimal, creative thinking in both design and production allow for Heide to represent itself and its program with design that is innovative and effective.
