With so much competition for people's free time, museum branding needs to stand out from the crowd. Sumo ( www.sumodesign.co.uk ) have worked with the marketing teams at museums and galleries across the UK and beyond. In this presentation you can find case studies of museum branding projects for: - Museum of East Anglian Life (Branding) - Wordsworth Trust (Branding) - Natural History Museum (Branding) - The Harley Gallery (Branding) - University of Cambridge Museums (Branding) - Creswell Crags (Branding) - Big Sculpture Weekends (Branding and Marketing Campaign) - Hepworth Wakefield (Marketing) - Shetland Museum & Archives You can find more case studies and useful information about branding on www.sumodesign.co.uk

2. Since 2000, Sumo has been making an impact
with branding, digital, print and advertising for
forward thinking organisations including the BBC,
The National Gallery, Qatar Museums Authority,
National Trust and The Hepworth Wakefield.
Today, that impact is needed more than ever…
We believe that what defines our work
is the impact it has for our clients.
Everything we do aims to have a positive impact,
whether that is converting a passing interest
into a purchase, a website hit into an actual
visit or an appreciation into real involvement.
Creating that impact requires great creative
ideas based on a well-considered strategy
that respects the audience, understands
the context and delivers the vision.
Balancing creativity with commercial
accountability means our success has only
been possible by creating impact for our clients.
IDEAS TO ACT UPON
It’s an approach that keeps us creatively ambitious,
yet strategically focussed. We always aim to create
great creative ideas that can appeal and inspire.
But for us an idea is only clever when it stimulates
action. It’s that objective that keeps us grounded,
tactically astute and commercially driven.
SO HOW DO WE CREATE
IDEAS TO ACT UPON?
A client writes his own brief. A designer can’t
start without one. We need to be absolutely clear
about what we want the audience to take out.
How do we want them to respond and act?
TO UNDERSTAND A MAN
YOU MUST WALK FIVE
MILES IN HIS SHOES
We want to imagine your different audiences
— even to become these people for a short
while. We focus on real target audience
insight, not marketing generalisations.
DESIGN DOESN’T
JUST IDENTIFY.
IT MUST SIGNIFY
Design is nothing without a message. We aim
to encapsulate the true values and spirit of our
client’s brand, and what makes it different.
GET A GOOD IDEA
AND STAY WITH IT
Do it, and work at it until it’s done right. In
our experience, a good creative idea requires
persistence. We wrestle with an idea until it’s
sharply honed and really well executed.
WE ALWAYS WANT
PEOPLE TO SAY
‘WE LOVE IT!’
We rarely analyse in the real world. Our responses
are usually emotive ones. Gut reactions are
good because emotions give rise to action.
SARAH HANLEY
CreativeDirector
EMAIL
sarah@sumodesign.co.uk
ADDRESS
Sumo
71 Westgate Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 1SG
TELEPHONE
0191 261 9894
WEBSITE
www.sumodesign.co.uk
WORKING WITH SUMO

3. WHO WE WORK WITH

4. CHALLENGE
The Museum of East Anglian Life is the largest independent museum
in East of England. Based in the heart of Stowmarket, the museum
is a key part of the local community. With 80 acres of countryside,
25 historic buildings, 45,000 objects and rare breed animals, the
museum has a diverse offer to communicate.
Over the past few years the museum has also emerged as a
social enterprise providing training, skills development and care
programmes, so they found themselves with a need to communicate
to clients and delivery partners as well as visitors and the community.
We were commissioned by them to work with them to establish their
brand positioning and new identity.
IDEA
We needed to know as much as possible about the organisation, their
audiences and their potential audiences, so we undertook a series of
workshops with the team.
We found the museum was a place where people grow, from their
experience, from the training programmes, from the things they
learn. So growth was an important part of the brand essence. “People
grow with us through history’ was established as the essence of the
museum. This reflected not only people visiting and training with
the organisation, but staff could get behind it, it meant something to
them as they grow with the museum.
CASE STUDY
MUSEUM OF
EAST ANGLIAN LIFE
REBRANDING
A MUSEUM

5. RESPONSE
To reach out to a broad audience and communicate the diversity of
the collection, we created a flexible identity that comes to life with a
palette of words. The museum has so much to say, so we adapted the
logo to fit with words relating to different themes.
The museum is lucky enough to have a working traditional letterpress,
so we could use the skills of the people connected with the museum
to create the unique typographic identity.
The texture of the typography also transfers to imagery and
colour blocks creating a multi-layered visual language which
can engage with all of their audiences, including teachers and
educational audiences.
REFERENCE
John Lanagan
Museum Manager
ADDRESS
Museum of East Anglian Life
Ilife Way
Stowmarket
Suffolk
IP14 1DL
TELEPHONE
01449 612229
EMAIL
John.Lanagan@eastanglianlife.org.uk

6. CHALLENGE
Founded in 1891 as a living memorial to the life and poetry of
William Wordsworth, The Wordsworth Trust is an authority on British
Romanticism, providing the full context for understanding and
celebrating this major cultural movement in history.
The Trust is passionate about the work it does and wanted to share
that passion by increasing its audience, communicating the depth
of its offer and revitalising the brand. Creating a brand which would
appeal to a wide audience whilst keeping academic integrity was
paramount to its success.
IDEA
Getting to the heart of the Trust through thorough research and
workshops with various staff members allowed us to truly understand
the organisation. With a core essence of ‘Sharing inspiration from
the past, for the future’ the new brand increased the Trusts audience
reach.
We created an identity which makes reference to the inspiration
behind one of Wordsworths most famous poems and plays on the
strength of the association between the daffodil and the poet in the
mind of the general public. It also flags up a major theme in his work
– nature – and gives the Trust ownership of an iconic symbol from the
history of Wordsworth.
CASE STUDY
THE WORDSWORTH TRUST
CREATING AN
IDENTITY FOR
WIDER APPEAL

7. RESPONSE
The new brand allows the Trust to communicate with
many different audiences through our audiences,
and to talk about its wider work and academic worth.
A comprehensive set of guidelines was created
to ensure consistency as the new brand rolls out,
and for all future applications.
Since the rebrand, the organisation has a renewed drive and
common purpose and change has been visible, with programming,
merchandise and events all changing to be brought in line with their
new brand ethos. We await visitor numbers.
“The difference between SUMO and
other design agencies is that they are
focused on how a brand will actually
work, not just on how it looks.”
Paul Kleian
Head of Marketing Communications
REFERENCE
Paul Kleian
Head of Marketing Communications
ADDRESS
The Wordsworth Trust
Dove Cottage
Grasmere
Cumbria
LA22 9SH
TELEPHONE
01539 435 544
EMAIL
P.Kleian@wordsworth.org.uk

8. CHALLENGE
On the last Friday of each month the Natural History Museum (NHM)
opens its doors in the evening to welcome an audience who would
like to visit the museum later and combine it with a social night out
by offering admission to the museum alongside live music and food
and drink.
Sponsored by Mastercard we were approached by the Natural
History Museum to create a new identity for the evening programme,
ensuring it would sit alongside both the Mastercard and NHM logo.
With the competition from the rest of London’s nightlife how could
we create an identity which would appeal to this audience?
IDEA
The new sub brand for the Natural History Museum was created;
After Hours. With the tagline ‘Explore the museum in a different light’
the After Hours brand brings together a photographic style with
the After Hours identity in the NHM typeface. The letter O in ‘Hours’
was cleverly highlighted and shifted to reflect the sun going down,
showing the museum coming to life after hours.
CASE STUDY
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
AFTER HOURS
BRANDING
EVENING EVENTS
IN A CROWDED
CULTURAL
LANDSCAPE

9. RESPONSE
The new brand has been well received by the Natural History
Museum and its audience for evening events. Every month the
After Hours events are a sell out and the evening programme is
going from strength to strength on the London circuit.
Visitor numbers increased by 31% from 2011-2012 when the new
creative was introduced.
REFERENCE
Jennifer Bailey
Head of Marketing
ADDRESS
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 5BD
TELEPHONE
020 7942 5886
EMAIL
jennifer.bailey@nhm.ac.uk
Visitor numbers increased
by 31% from 2011-2012
when the new creative
was introduced.

10. CHALLENGE
Established in 1977 to improve public access to the arts, The Harley
Foundation is a charitable trust. Based in the ducal estate of Welbeck,
the Foundation runs the award-winning Harley Gallery, an education
programme and three sets of artists’ studios.
With plans in the offing to create a new gallery space to showcase
The Portland Collections coupled with a desire to appeal to a younger
audience, the trustees decided it was a good time to address the
brand for the venues and activities of the Foundation.
IDEA
We held 2 workshop sessions, one with trustees of the Foundation
and another with staff and estate managers to fully understand their
vision. In terms of the activities we discovered the architecture of the
brand had many strands, consisting of the Foundation, the Gallery,
the Shop and the Artist Studios. The overarching themes from the
workshop were the mix of the contemporary and the historic, being
inspired by the past to make their mark on the future.
With this in mind we developed a unique typographic treatment
combining a timeless and classic serif typeface with a bold, minimal
sans serif to create a wordmark with broad appeal. A dynamic two
tone visual language was developed to communicate the brand
across a wide range of materials.
CASE STUDY
THE HARLEY GALLERY
GALLERY
REBRAND

11. A B C D E F
G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S
T U V W X Y Z
., : ! ?
0123456789
HARLEY
DISPLAYA CUSTOM TYPEFACE
RESPONSE
The brand will start to roll out in 2014, signalling the
20th birthday of the gallery. We look forward to seeing
the response to the new brand and await audience numbers.
“We’re delighted to have worked with
Sumo. The team have got to know The
Harley Gallery inside out and upside
down – so we’ve been completely
confident to place our brand in their
hands! An easy, inspiring and effective
process. Thank you. ”
Rebecca Wombell
Marketing Manager
REFERENCE
Rebecca Wombell
Marketing Manager
ADDRESS
The Harley Gallery
Welbeck
Worksop
Nottinghamshire
S80 3LW
TELEPHONE
01909 501 700
EMAIL
rwombell@harleygallery.co.uk

12. CHALLENGE
The University of Cambridge Museums and Gardens venues
consist of 11 museums and the Botanical Gardens. The University’s
collections are a world-class resource for researchers, students
and members of the public.
As individual museums the venues all look after their own
communications, but there was little cross-promotion or
cohesive messaging collaboratively.
Our challenge was to develop an umbrella visual language to
promote the museums and gardens as a joint offer.
IDEA
An eclectic mix of images from across the 12 venues were combined
with witty and playful copylines to reflect the real breadth of
museums that visitors could experience.
Playing on themes to surprise and intrigue visitors about collections
they may never have thought they could see in Cambridge, in one
day. The concept has an academic yet experiential feel to enhance
Cambridge’s academic tone yet with an accessible feel to engage
with visitors and residents alike.
CASE STUDY
UNIVERSITY OF
CAMBRIDGE MUSEUMS
GARDEN
MARKETING
A GROUP OF
MUSEUMS IN
A COHESIVE
STYLE

13. From Arctic Exploration
to artistic inspiration
Curating Cambridge
celebrating our stuff, our stories, our city
Thursday 23 October – Sunday 23 November 2014
RESPONSE
The concept is currently rolling out across a range of materials, the
first being a project for ‘Twilight at the Museums’ as well as the recent
completion of a set of guidelines to be used by all venues.
REFERENCE
Verity Sanderson
Marketing and Press Coordinator
ADDRESS
University of Cambridge
Museums Office
c/o The Fitzwilliam Museum
Trumpington Street
Cambridge
CB2 1RB
TELEPHONE
07872 410663
EMAIL
vcs25@cam.ac.uk

14. CHALLENGE
Creswell Crags is both a scheduled monument and a site of specific
scientific interest. An existing museum and visitor attraction, in 2007
Creswell Heritage Trust raised funding to develop a £9m Museum and
Education Centre on the site to tell the story of Ice Age Britain and
Creswell Crags.
However, to the general public the site was no always evident or
recognised. This represented a major opportunity to make the Crags
a focus for landscape identity and help develop a sense of place
amongst local communities, as well as to develop a significant
tourism asset for the region.
IDEA
Like all projects we work on, we wanted to get to the heart of the
project, understand what it stood for and how we could convey that.
A series of workshops were developed which brought together the
board, management team and staff of Creswell Crags to help us
identify the brand’s essence and associated values.
We developed four brand pillars: authenticity, accessibility,
sustainability and spirit. Building upon this foundation, our core
message is that Creswell Crags is an inspirational place, in landscape
and human history. This uniqueness makes it a powerful means of
‘Inspiring People.’
CASE STUDY
CRESWELL CRAGS
CREATING AN
IDENTITY FOR
A NEW VISITOR
ATTRACTION

15. www.creswellcrags.org.uk
byBritain’soldestartgallery
BEINSPIRED
RESPONSE
The strategy steered the creation of our new identity. It uses four
‘man-made’ marks taken from Creswell Crags’ cave art, some of the
earliest evidence of art in Britain. This combined with our specially
created typeface form a powerful, elemental total marque. The copy
and imagery continue the ‘inspiring’ theme across the full range of
marketing materials.
The new brand underpins the site’s national and international
prominence as well as assisting with the wider regeneration of the
region.
“What impressed me about Sumo is the
sensitive way the team has listened to
our needs...the resulting brand shows
a thoughtful combination of their
creativity with our aspirations.”
Ian Wall
Director
REFERENCE
Ian Wall
Director
ADDRESS
Creswell Crags
Crags Road
Welbeck
Worksop
Notts
S80 3LH
TELEPHONE
01909 720378
EMAIL
ian@creswell-crags.org.uk

16. CHALLENGE
We were approached by The Hepworth Wakefield, The Henry
Moore Institute, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Leeds Art Gallery
to create a campaign to reach out to arts-engaged audiences in
Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield and encourage them to make
a visit to the venues. Although the three venues are Yorkshire
based they wanted to reach out beyond their local audiences and
promote the venues jointly as a place to visit on a weekend by
those who are interested in arts.
Our overall aim was to showcase Yorkshire as a unique destination
for visual arts and to highlight the quality of these four venues.
IDEA
A friendly, vibrant illustrative approach was created to give a
cohesive look and feel across the campaign and reach out to the
arts enthusiasts and highlight the wealth of art on show at each of
the venues.
We also developed a marketing campaign for the campaign
to reach out to as much of the target market as possible. This
involved leaflet distribution, strategically placed advertising, a
strong web-presence and on-site marketing materials at each
venue. A loyalty card was also introduced to encourage attendance
at all for venues, with incentives offered to those that did so.
CASE STUDY
BIG SCULPTURE WEEKENDS
BRANDING FOUR
DISTINCTIVE
VENUES AS
ONE UNIQUE
DESTINATION

17. RESPONSE
As the project was part funded by Arts Council England, it was
essential to evaluate the success of the campaign. We used a sign
up system online which then allowed us to request information from
visitors, as well as on site questionnaires.
The results were impressive with 50% of people saying they visited all
4 venues and over 75% of visitors said the campaign motivated them
to visit. Nearly 90% of visitors said they would visit the venues after
visiting as part of Big Sculpture Weekends.
The success of the campaign attracted attention and sponsorship
from Welcome to Yorkshire allowing us to evolve the campaign for a
second year and build on the success.
REFERENCE
Nina Rogers
Marketing Manager
ADDRESS
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
West Bretton
Wakefield
WF4 4LG
EMAIL
nina.rogers@ysp.co.uk
50% of people said they
visited all 4 venues and
over 75% of visitors said the
campaign motivated them
to visit.
Nearly 90% of visitors said
they would visit the venues
after visiting as part of Big
Sculpture Weekends.

18. CHALLENGE
The Hepworth Wakefield opened in 2011 and with ten gallery spaces
is one of the largest purpose-built gallery spaces outside of London.
The gallery celebrates the work of Barbara Hepworth who was born
and raised in Wakefield with a unique display of forty sculptures,
previously unseen. The sculptures are complimented by works
by some of the UK’s best known artists, houses in the bold and
modern galleries.
Following a national pitch, we were asked to work with The Hepworth
Wakefield to create an eye-catching, intriguing and memorable
launch campaign, to inform, create awareness and encourage
attendance at the gallery.
IDEA
We took our inspiration for the campaign from the iconic shape of the
building, which instantly stood out as a dramatic, bold marque, which
would be memorable for the audience and become very recognisable
as being the Hepworth Wakefield shape.
Our initial teaser campaign, used the shape and intriguing straplines
to play on the curiosity of the audience, but not give too much away.
We wanted to create an air of mystery about the campaign,
which then developed to reveal more about the gallery opening
and the exhibitions.
CASE STUDY
THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD
LAUNCH CAMPAIGN
LAUNCHING
A NEW ART
GALLERY IN
YORKSHIRE

19. RESPONSE
The campaign was rolled out across a vast array of marketing
materials from 48-sheet posters and leaflet drops in Wakefield to draw
a local audience, to an underground campaign and national railway
campaign to reach a wider audience and finally niche arts marketing
in specialist publications to encourage attendance from art lovers
looking to seek out new experiences.
In the first month following the launch the gallery received 100,000
visitors! Naturally the gallery were thrilled.
REFERENCE
Holly Latham
Head of Marketing Communications
ADDRESS
The Hepworth Wakefield
Wakefield
West Yorkshire
WF1 5AW
TELEPHONE
01924 247 360
EMAIL
hollielatham@hepworthwakefield.
org
In the first month following
the launch the gallery
received 100,000 visitors.
A total of 511,781 in their
first year, generating
approximately £10m of
tourism spend in the area.

20. CHALLENGE
How do you create a brand identity that links the past, present and
future? Something that signifies, not merely identifies, and helps to
express the unique heritage of one of Britain’s most beautiful and
distinctive areas.
The Shetland Museum and Archives was an ambitious £11.6m
cultural venue in Lerwick which houses over 3,000 artefacts central
to the Islands’ history. The venue is the natural starting point for
anyone who wants to know more about Shetland’s heritage and
culture.
IDEA
We believed a venue that reflected such a highly distinctive and
cohesive community demanded a proposition that had its roots
firmly in Shetland. It would have been folly to create something
that was in any sense contrived or falsely imposed. Our solution
is simple, powerful and, above all, totally relevant to Shetland. It
helps to unite three traditionally distinct heritage elements, namely
Museum Artefacts, Archival Collections and Heritage Sites, into one
emotive and appealing story for all ages.
The distinctive, angular shape of our identity was inspired by various
aspects of Shetland life. In part, by the museum’s timber-clad Boat
Hall. Its unusual sloping walls were conceived as abstract sails,
echoing the sail shape of the old Shetland Herring Drifters.
CASE STUDY
SHETLAND MUSEUMS
AND ARCHIVES
CREATING A
BRAND IDENTITY
FOR A NEW
CULTURAL VENUE

21. What’s on at the
Shetland Museum
and Archives
Early People
of Shetland
A guide to artefacts in the
Shetland Museum and Archives
Your guide to up and coming exhibitions
in the Shetland Museum and Archives
What’s on at the
Shetland Museum
and Archives
Early People
of Shetland
A guide to artefacts in the
Shetland Museum and Archives
Your guide to up and coming exhibitions
in the Shetland Museum and Archives
Discover your past
at the new Shetland
Museum and Archives
INFORMATION: 01595 695057
Shetland Museum and Archives,
Hays Dock, Lerwick, Shetland
ZE1 0EL, UK.
www.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org
info@shetlandmuseumandarchives.org
RESPONSE
The identity was an immediate hit with stakeholders and visitors
alike and we worked very closely with the project team to roll the
brand out. The new brand was consistently applied and interpreted
across literature, promotional materials, website, signage, interiors
and merchandise, as well as a number of interpretive panels to be
displayed across
Following its opening in June 2007, local and national interest was
intense. In fact, first year visitor targets were met in only three months.
They now welcome over 83,000 visitors a year.
REFERENCE
John MacKenzie
Project Manager
ADDRESS
Shetland Amenity Trust
Garthspool
Lerwick
ZE1 0NQ
TELEPHONE
01595 694688
“All the way through the project we felt
that this was not simply another job
to SUMO — they showed a genuine
enthusiasm and a firm commitment to our
ideas. Our confidence that the physical
distance between the Shetland Islands
and Newcastle would cause no problems
was well placed, and indeed this had no
relevance or effect on the smooth running
on the project. We are simply delighted.”
John MacKenzie
Project Manager for the Shetland Museum
and Archives

22. THANK YOU
CONTACT
SarahHanley
CreativeDirector
EMAIL
sarah@sumodesign.co.uk
ADDRESS
Sumo
71 Westgate Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 1SG
TELEPHONE
0191 261 9894
WEBSITE
www.sumodesign.co.uk