{"id":729839,"date":"2026-06-11T13:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/729839\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T13:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T13:42:18","slug":"this-spiral-logo-shows-us-how-branding-is-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/729839\/","title":{"rendered":"This spiral logo shows us how branding is done"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Museum of Narratives (MoN) is housed in a very special building in Tokyo that looks like a spiral. It has modern sustainable architecture and is made of traditional wood, recycled materials and native Japanese vegetation. It was recently selected by the UNESCO-backed Prix Versailles as one of the World’s Most Beautiful Museums.<\/p>\n

Evidently, it needed a name and an identity to match, which is where Pentagram<\/a> came in. The museum was founded on the belief that culture is something living, evolving and which should be shared, something to participate in, and like the best rebrands<\/a>, the brand strategy, name, verbal identity and visual system were all formed around this central premise.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Museum\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Pentagram)<\/p>\n

In terms of the name, the museum needed something that would work across languages. MoN means gate in Japanese, which references the area’s history as a gateway to Japan. The Museum of Narratives also suggests that culture is an ongoing exchange of ideas, stories and perspectives.<\/p>\n

The museum houses a wide spectrum of activity, from manga and traditional performance to contemporary music and dance, which led Pentagram to develop the idea of culture as a continuous cycle of influence, reinterpretation and renewal.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Museum\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Pentagram)<\/p>\n

The logo is my favourite part of the identity. It’s a visually striking spiral, which spells out the letters ‘M’, ‘O’, ‘N’. As well as the spiral there’s also a simple bar that structures and frames content. The logo is expressed through various fun animations and touchpoints, including some very cool earrings.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The colour palette is build around three core colours representing sun, land and water and the typographic system is bilingual, in both Japanese and English.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 6<\/p>\n

\"museum(Image credit: Pentagram)\"museum(Image credit: Pentagram)\"museum(Image credit: Pentagram)\"museum(Image credit: Pentagram)\"museum(Image credit: Pentagram)\"museum(Image credit: Pentagram)<\/p>\n

The verbal identity was created by Pentagram’s Brand Narrative team (headed by one of last year’s Brand Impact Award<\/a> judges, Ashley Johnson) and was designed to be welcoming and accessible. It again echoes the idea that culture is something to be participated in, not just observed.<\/p>\n

Sign up to Creative Bloq’s daily newsletter, which brings you the latest news and inspiration from the worlds of art, design and technology.<\/p>\n

Overall this is an inviting identity that stands out from other museums and definitely makes me want to visit. The verbal and visual identity recently won two D&AD Pencils<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Brand Impact Awards 2026 are now open for entries! If you have a standout branding project from the last year that you think deserves recognition, you need to enter the BIAs. You have until July 9 to enter and can do so on the Brand Impact Awards website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Museum of Narratives (MoN) is housed in a very special building in Tokyo that looks like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-729839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}