Peranakan culture – famed for its colourful exuberance and hybridity – was quickly becoming a historical footnote in Southeast Asia. Many see it not as a living culture, but as a relic of the distant past. To challenge this perception, the brand refresh for the Peranakan Museum had to expand beyond the confines of history, to inspire a new generation of artists, rebels and creators.
The rebranding distils Peranakan culture’s maximalist aesthetic into a digital library of reimagined patterns, motifs and more. Our graphic system layers and blends different visuals and styles, just as the Peranakans hybridised different cultures and influences, to create a riot of audacious beauty. We created both static and animated brand patterns with imagery and references drawn from the museum’s archive.
For typography, Nobel by Frere-Jones Type was utilised as the headline typeface and Arlt by PampaType for body text; both institutional and contemporary in their base forms, with slight characterful and decorated lilts, allowing the brand to speak with both the formality of a museum and the flair of a Peranakan.
