Tate Logo Design

I actually planned to go to Tate Modern again today to continue my brand experience journey. However, the weather was just too beautiful and I kind of did not like the idea to get on the tube and spend the whole afternoon in central London. Therefore, I chose a topic which is not necessarily related to an actual visit, but can be explored online or from my memory: The logo design of Tate Modern.

The Tate Modern logo is the first logo I've ever seen, which is kind of a "living" logo. It changes its shape and appearance continuously and also according to the medium it is used. The basis is "TATE" written in capital letters and in a font, which comes close Arial, just a bit more round and modern (I'm not a typographer, so please don't judge...). However, the logo may change every time you'll see it. The letters become bold, sometimes the first too letters almost vanish, sometimes it's the second two letters. It looks like the letters start to disappear and appear again and the spaces within the letters become bigger or smaller. Go, have a look yourself on www.tate.org.uk and click on the different tabs and titles. Every time the page re-loads, the logo changes. They also play a lot with different colors. The colour, which seems to be predominant for Tate Modern is pink. However, it does not have to be pink, it works on several backgrounds depending on the content of the medium where the logo is used.

Is the Tate Modern logo a logo in transformation?

Didn't we learn that one of the most important rules in branding is consistency? It seems that we are sometimes allowed to break the rules and it also seems that it can be very successful. However, although the logo changes its appearance, there is indeed very much consistency. Many of you might not have even noticed that the logo changes, because you always see only one version at the time. And the design is always very clear and strong. Most importantly the style does not change, but stays within clear borders. The logo design has very distinct characteristics.

Tate Modern is kind of a sub-brand within the Tate family brand structure or also called brand architecture. Tate Modern's siblings are Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. All the sub-brands have their own colour and the supplement is written on top of the right corner of the "TATE" logo. Tate Modern is the most well-known of these four sub-brands and the others definitely profit from Tate Modern's popularity. Many people also visit Tate Britain on their trip to London and not just because they want to see the exhibitions with as high quality as Tate Modern, but also because they make the link between the two brands and get the attention of Tate Britain through their experience with Tate Modern.

HdM and Ai Weiwei will design the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion this Summer

I know I'm always a bit late with the announcements here on red bulb. If you want to get more recent updates it's probably better to follow my twitter account @jbabics.

The decision was made earlier this month by the Serpentine Gallery that the Swiss Architects Herzog & de Meuron and the Chinese artist, architect, curator, publisher, poet and urbanist Ai Weiwei will have the honor to be able to design the gallery's pavilion in Kensington Gardens this summer. I was very pleased to hear that but at the same time also a bit surprised. One of the condition for an architect to be chosen to design the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is that they have never built anything in the UK before. Herzog & de Meuron have indeed completed a quite distinct project in the UK with converting the Bankside Power Station in London into Tate Modern. However, the pavilion will be the first "collaboration" of HdM and Ai Weiwei in the UK... In 2010 they already used a trick to get Jean Nouvel build the pavilion with the reason that his new shopping center close to St Paul's Cathedral was actually not finished yet. The original idea of the pavilion was probably to give a chance to very talented new architects with potential to become start architects. Since most of the pavilion designers are now stars (e.g. Zaha Hadid, the designer of the first pavilion in 2000) the standard became very high and the building boom in London does not leave so many star architects, which have not built in UK yet.

Anyway, by no means I want to criticise the choice of Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, and his team. I really look forward to seeing the result of HdM and Ai Weiwei's creative minds, which has of course also a connection to the Olympic Games in London. Herzog and de Meuron designed the "Bird's Nest", the National Stadium for the Olympics in Beijing 2008 and Ai Weiwei was integrated in the project very early as their cultural interpreter.

I am sure we will see a very unique approach of the architects to this project. Some first descriptions can be found on www.serpentinegallery.org.

London Fashion Week

I can't really write anything about the London Fashion Week, because I'm not there. However, I told myself for the next LFW I need to get some tickets. Somehow...

Although, I'm not attending any fashion shows or events, I still get a glimpse of all the fancy people walking around Covent Garden and other places in Central London. London Fashion Week is another vibrant event, which brings together so many creative people, who inspire each other. Lovely!

Universal Studios unveils a new logo for its 100th Birthday

It's not a rebrand. The new logo of Universal, which will be used this spring, the year of the studio's 100th birthday, is similar to the old version and very recognisable.

When I saw it for the first time I was quite surprised and thought that they use now a 3D font for their logo. However, when I checked out older logo versions I saw that this is actually not new, but that already older logos had "UNIVERSAL" written in 3D. The new logo somehow makes it more distinct, or maybe it was just me, who only noticed it now.

I could very well imagine that the logo will be really in 3D when shown in front of 3D movies.

Another change is the text below the logo, which says now "a Comcast Company" and not "An NBCUniversal Company" anymore, after Comcast purchased 51% of NBCU in 2010.

Could a Museum be a Brand?

I’m writing my first “tate experience” blog article on the cold concrete stairs in the turbine hall. The café was massively overcrowded as the rest of the museum. This is actually a very good sign, although it’s a bit annoying for me. Tate Modern attracts thousands of visitors every day and it is probably one of the most popular tourist attractions in London. Did somebody say people don’t like to go to museums? 

The audience could not be more diverse: People from all around the world, kids, teens, a couple on their first date, lonely individuals, artists, art lovers, school groups and English language students. One thing people want to see here is art, no discussion. However, I strongly believe this place has an attraction, which goes beyond art. Tate Modern became a place, where people just like to spend their time. It became a place, which people recommend to their friends. It has its consistency with the collection, but also variety with its exhibitions and events. People might come here just to visit the shop (something I do regularly for example). Visitors consume Tate Modern, some become a member of Tate Modern and some might see Tate Modern as their favourite place in London, where they look forward to coming back again and again. Tate Modern has a very distinct logo and commuting with the tube, you might face advertisements from Tate Modern every day.

All these characteristics sound like what businesses are desperately looking for. Being a very successful brand. People who have positive emotions and memories when thinking of the brand and of course also worldwide popularity and recognition.

However, are we allowed to call a museum a brand? Of course we are, brands and branding is used for almost everything today, which I think is absolutely fair as long as the product, company, location, person fulfils certain characteristics, which I will explore later on in my “tate experience”.

Through my regular visits in the next couple of weeks I will try to investigate what makes Tate Modern so successful and loved. I will try to dig deeper into my own emotions and feelings of why Tate Modern is one of my beloved places in London. And hopefully I will be able to draw some conclusions for other brands and how they can learn from Tate Modern.

Now it gets almost too cold and I need to move on. Hopefully the rain stopped. Otherwise, I will just spend some more time here, which is usually no problem, because I could spend hours in Tate Modern.

Tate Experience

For my second term at Birkbeck College I chose to attend the module “Buyer Behaviour”, which we decided to call now “Consumer Behaviour”, but it seems to take its time to change the name officially. This, however, does not seem to have any influence on the quality of the module, which I very much enjoy. Choosing the module has the consequence that I’m left with almost no time apart from working and studying, since I also have two compulsory modules during this term. For these two modules, as the name compulsory would suggest, I did not have any freedom to attend them or not.

Anyway, this is not really of significance of what I’m about to start here. The assignment in my module “Consumer Behaviour” is writing about our experience with a brand. At the end the assignment will be an essay with hopefully some good academic sources and interesting studies. But Wendy Hein, our lecturer, motivated us to write a blog with our experience and afterwards integrate this in our essay. This is of course a very good opportunity for me to start a series in red bulb. That it fits into the content of red bulb, but especially, because the topic absolutely fascinates me, I will write about a cultural brand: Tate Modern. You're able to join me on a journey, where I will write about my experience with one of the loveliest museums in the world. Enjoy…!