{"id":120566,"date":"2025-11-04T03:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T03:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/120566\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T03:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T03:46:10","slug":"the-philadelphia-art-museums-rebrand-has-plenty-of-critics-but-will-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/120566\/","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Art Museum’s rebrand has plenty of critics. But will it work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly a month after its unveiling, the new logo and rebranding of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as the Philadelphia Art Museum<\/a> \u2014 or PhAM \u2014 isn\u2019t getting a lot of love.<\/p>\n

Critics say the new logo and its angular griffin look severe \u2014 more like a soccer team, a clothing brand for teens, or a beer label than an art museum. The old logo made the word Art bigger than Philadelphia and Museum. The new one makes all three words equal. <\/p>\n

Many have noted the dissonance of a rebranding meant to emphasize Philadelphia being designed by a firm in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

The headline on a Hyperallergic<\/a> story was blunt: \u201cPeople Really Hate the Philadelphia Art Museum Rebrand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The usual caveats apply. People often dislike change, social media comments tend toward the extreme, and some really do like the new corporate identity. Other Philadelphia cultural institutions have rolled out new names or looks in recent weeks (the Highmark Mann<\/a>) or years (Opera Philadelphia) and have drawn little notice, but the Art Museum\u2019s rebrand has become the talk of the town.<\/p>\n

Facing sagging attendance, Art Museum leaders rolled out<\/a> the name change, new logo, and graphic identity with the intention of projecting a more informal, welcoming image, sending the message that the museum \u201cis not your grandfather\u2019s art museum,\u201d in the words of Paul Dien, its chief marketing officer. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to bring people in and help put us more clearly on the map,\u201d museum director and CEO Sasha Suda said at the time of the rebrand announcement.<\/p>\n

Some board members, however, are concerned that the rebrand is bringing the museum the wrong kind of attention. Changing Philadelphia Museum of Art to Philadelphia Art Museum has elicited an unfortunate moniker from social media wags: PhArt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are an amazing museum with an amazing collection, amazing curators and an amazing experience, and it\u2019s really a shame, the jokes and negative reaction<\/a> to the rebranding,\u201d said museum trustee Yoram (Jerry) Wind.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, while trustees were kept informed as plans for a rebrand were developed, they only learned that it was final as the news was being made public, said Wind.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically the board never approved it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had expected to see it after the board gave feedback and expected to see the final version so we could approve it or at least see what they were planning to do. And it was launched, so we were as surprised as everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Museum trustee Jennifer Rice said she\u2019s unsure whether the board was expecting another look at the rebrand before its launch, but \u201cif I have a criticism, I think the board should have been told when the launch was happening,\u201d she said. \u201cI think there was an opportunity to let the board know, \u2018On Oct. 8 we\u2019re doing this rollout.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked whether the museum\u2019s bylaws would necessitate board approval of the rebrand, museum spokesperson Laura Coogan declined to discuss what she called \u201cthe museum\u2019s internal processes,\u201d adding that \u201cdecisions around the museum\u2019s rebrand were discussed openly\u201d with the board.<\/p>\n

Asked if she liked the rebrand, Rice said, \u201cI do like it. I love the tag line \u2018Wall to Wall Art for All.\u2019 I like that it feels fresh and feels new and feels like it would connect with the audience we\u2019ve had trouble connecting with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The measure of the rebrand\u2019s success will be \u201cmonths from now,\u201d she said, \u201cif we have more foot traffic, more membership and if we\u2019re raising more money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coogan said Suda was unavailable to talk about the rebrand\u2019s reception, but said that the museum is \u201cstaying firm with the rebrand and there is no internal discussion amongst museum leaders to revert or alter the rebrand. As brand equity builds, we are confident that the rebrand will fulfill its aim to support the ongoing mission and optimistic future of the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cost of the rebrand\u2019s \u201cdiscovery, strategy, and visual labs\u201d came to $250,000, plus additional costs for \u201cway-finding and paid media,\u201d said Coogan, though she declined to specify the full expense of the project.<\/p>\n

One of the most frequently expressed criticisms of the new identity is that the museum went outside of the city to develop it \u2014 to Brooklyn-based branding and design firm Gretel. <\/p>\n

The museum issued a request for proposals to more than 40 agencies, both local and international, \u201cand Gretel stood out with the most innovative and bold direction,\u201d a museum spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

The rebrand has received praise too, including a review in trade blog Brand New<\/a> that said it infused the museum with a \u201cmuch needed, new, distinct, and energetic identity that was sorely missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would expect a bold brand to sort of provoke a bold conversation as well,\u201d said Ryan Moore, partner and executive creative director at Gretel. <\/p>\n

The goal was to emphasize the Philadelphia aspect of the museum\u2019s identity, and \u201cpart of that was shifting the perception toward something that felt more inclusive, more conversational,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people come up those steps, you know, the Rocky steps, whenever they visit Philadelphia, and comparatively few come through the doors to the museum. So really, if I think about one of the core objectives here, it\u2019s about how to invite more of Philadelphia in those doors and into the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of public reaction to the rebrand, it is early days, says Maggy Wilkinson, an ex-officio museum board member who is CEO of Philadelphia marketing consultancy Athena Global Advisors. It may take months or even up to a year and a half before a consensus emerges, she said, and a \u201csocial listening\u201d report by Athena found that the initial reaction on social media was modest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a small spike with 0.1% of their [social media] following, and the conversation has returned to normal,\u201d Wilkinson said. \u201cNow, could that change and would we want to follow that? Yes. But that\u2019s what we are seeing today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s report on initial reaction found that about 40% of responses were negative, 30% were positive, and the rest neutral, said Wilkinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that there should be alarm bells at this point based on what we have seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Art museum staffers who have complained about the new name and look have been told that, in fact, the museum didn\u2019t change its name \u2014 legally, it\u2019s still the Philadelphia Museum of Art. <\/p>\n

Regardless, \u201cif the customer sees the new name, this is a name change,\u201d said Wind, an emeritus marketing professor at the Wharton School.<\/p>\n

Among the museum\u2019s staff, reaction to the rebrand has been \u201ca bit mixed,\u201d said Halcyone Schiller, president of AFSCME Local 397, which represents many of the museum\u2019s workers. \u201cBut generally there are a lot of people who have worked on this project and a lot of people that have strong ideas about how the museum should represent itself, so all of those reactions are coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board, too, is split, several trustees said.<\/p>\n

So what now?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has not been decided,\u201d said Wind. \u201cThe board will have a very serious discussion with management that says, \u2018Now that it\u2019s out in the world, what do we do?\u2019 Do we continue? Are we modifying it in some respect? We definitely have to do something. They have to address the fact that there are so many negative comments about it. They can\u2019t ignore it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the museum\u2019s affiliates isn\u2019t going along with the rebrand. The Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show, which opens this week at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art Women\u2019s Committee and Craft Show Committee, and raises money for the museum each year.<\/p>\n

Show director Nancy O\u2019Meara said she did not know of the name change in advance, and the show has no plans to change its name. <\/p>\n

Asked what she thought of the new name, she said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s gotten a lot of press, and press is good, right? The museum is getting a lot of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly a month after its unveiling, the new logo and rebranding of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,71917],"class_list":{"0":"post-120566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-philadelphia-art-museum-rebrand-logo-griffin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}