Rijksmuseum Boerhaave

Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, one of 16 national museums in the Netherlands, is home to “One of the most important scientific and medical history collections in the world”, according to The Times.

The rebuilding of the interior in 2016 was also an opportunity to reconsider the museum’s position. The Hague-based Silo Agency developed a new brand strategy, identity and means of communication; Fabrique is responsible for the new Boerhaave website. Boerhaave’s focus shifted from being “treasurers of a collection” to “offering the experience of discovery”.

Looking at the new graphic identity, the rebranding process must have been fun and exciting. On Silo’s Vimeo channel, a case animation and an experiment reel show how the main parts of the new logo, a square and a circle, can interact. Where circle meets square, chemistry happens. Glitches, distortion, blobs and sounds present Boerhaave in an abstract way exciting, fun, maybe even slightly disturbing.

In the main uses of the new identity (posters and website), the experiments are toned down. The logo animation became a mouse-over behaviour in the website. In print, the extra large ‘b’ logo somehow still seems to suggest it could change shape any moment. The suggestion of change is reinforced throughout all means of communication through the use of Optimo’s Px Grotesk for all text, from wordmark to logo. Px Grotesk changes its face from square to round, from human to mechanic in almost every word. In text sizes, Px Grotesk’s quirks almost seem absent; in larger sizes, its quirky glyphs amplify the colourful imagery, while adding a twist to the rational and austere side of both the font itself and Silo’s typography.