Nearly a month after its unveiling, the new logo and rebranding of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as the Philadelphia Art Museum — or PhAM — isn’t getting a lot of love.

Critics say the new logo and its angular griffin look severe — 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.

Many have noted the dissonance of a rebranding meant to emphasize Philadelphia being designed by a firm in Brooklyn.

The headline on a Hyperallergic story was blunt: “People Really Hate the Philadelphia Art Museum Rebrand.”

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) or years (Opera Philadelphia) and have drawn little notice, but the Art Museum’s rebrand has become the talk of the town.

Facing sagging attendance, Art Museum leaders rolled out the name change, new logo, and graphic identity with the intention of projecting a more informal, welcoming image, sending the message that the museum “is not your grandfather’s art museum,” in the words of Paul Dien, its chief marketing officer.

“It’s going to bring people in and help put us more clearly on the map,” museum director and CEO Sasha Suda said at the time of the rebrand announcement.

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.

“We are an amazing museum with an amazing collection, amazing curators and an amazing experience, and it’s really a shame, the jokes and negative reaction to the rebranding,” said museum trustee Yoram (Jerry) Wind.

What’s 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.

“Basically the board never approved it,” he said. “We 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.”

Museum trustee Jennifer Rice said she’s unsure whether the board was expecting another look at the rebrand before its launch, but “if I have a criticism, I think the board should have been told when the launch was happening,” she said. “I think there was an opportunity to let the board know, ‘On Oct. 8 we’re doing this rollout.’”

When asked whether the museum’s bylaws would necessitate board approval of the rebrand, museum spokesperson Laura Coogan declined to discuss what she called “the museum’s internal processes,” adding that “decisions around the museum’s rebrand were discussed openly” with the board.

Asked if she liked the rebrand, Rice said, “I do like it. I love the tag line ‘Wall to Wall Art for All.’ I like that it feels fresh and feels new and feels like it would connect with the audience we’ve had trouble connecting with.”

The measure of the rebrand’s success will be “months from now,” she said, “if we have more foot traffic, more membership and if we’re raising more money.”

Coogan said Suda was unavailable to talk about the rebrand’s reception, but said that the museum is “staying 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.”

The cost of the rebrand’s “discovery, strategy, and visual labs” came to $250,000, plus additional costs for “way-finding and paid media,” said Coogan, though she declined to specify the full expense of the project.

One of the most frequently expressed criticisms of the new identity is that the museum went outside of the city to develop it — to Brooklyn-based branding and design firm Gretel.

The museum issued a request for proposals to more than 40 agencies, both local and international, “and Gretel stood out with the most innovative and bold direction,” a museum spokesperson said.

The rebrand has received praise too, including a review in trade blog Brand New that said it infused the museum with a “much needed, new, distinct, and energetic identity that was sorely missing.”

“We would expect a bold brand to sort of provoke a bold conversation as well,” said Ryan Moore, partner and executive creative director at Gretel.

The goal was to emphasize the Philadelphia aspect of the museum’s identity, and “part of that was shifting the perception toward something that felt more inclusive, more conversational,” he said.

“So 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’s about how to invite more of Philadelphia in those doors and into the museum.”

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 “social listening” report by Athena found that the initial reaction on social media was modest.

“There was a small spike with 0.1% of their [social media] following, and the conversation has returned to normal,” Wilkinson said. “Now, could that change and would we want to follow that? Yes. But that’s what we are seeing today.”

The firm’s report on initial reaction found that about 40% of responses were negative, 30% were positive, and the rest neutral, said Wilkinson.

“I’m not sure that there should be alarm bells at this point based on what we have seen.”

Art museum staffers who have complained about the new name and look have been told that, in fact, the museum didn’t change its name — legally, it’s still the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Regardless, “if the customer sees the new name, this is a name change,” said Wind, an emeritus marketing professor at the Wharton School.

Among the museum’s staff, reaction to the rebrand has been “a bit mixed,” said Halcyone Schiller, president of AFSCME Local 397, which represents many of the museum’s workers. “But 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.”

The board, too, is split, several trustees said.

So what now?

“This has not been decided,” said Wind. “The board will have a very serious discussion with management that says, ‘Now that it’s out in the world, what do we do?’ 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’t ignore it.”

One of the museum’s affiliates isn’t 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’s Committee and Craft Show Committee, and raises money for the museum each year.

Show director Nancy O’Meara said she did not know of the name change in advance, and the show has no plans to change its name.

Asked what she thought of the new name, she said:

“I think it’s gotten a lot of press, and press is good, right? The museum is getting a lot of attention.”