Claire and I visited the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art today, and as well as being impressed by many of the exhibits—the Edvard Munch and accompanying Graphic Art exhibitions are well worth a look if you are any where near Edinburgh—I was duly taken with its identity system.
Designed by Glasgow based O Street, they have aligned all the 'O's, (their website reveals an slight obsession with 'O's, as their name may suggest), something I didn't notice at first. This allows a neat, right aligned edge, with which to split the logotype in two, emphasising the fact that there are two galleries to the Modern which are split into different buildings separated by a road.
Before realising this, on seeing the half written gallery name on a sign as we approached the building the Munch exhibition was housed in, I thought it interesting, but a little gimmicky. A bold move, I thought, as I wondered how they ever managed to sell the idea of only displaying half the clients' name to the client. However, it all made sense very quickly when walking around the two sites, especially when seeing the two halves so closely situated, as in the above photograph, and I am now an ardent fan. I can imagine the fun they must have had in dreaming up different situations where they could exploit this visual game, and thus reinforce the concept to visitors to the gallery.
Check out more examples on my Flickr and the O Street website.
