The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum that opened its doors in December 2005 to people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Based in SF Bay Area, MoAD is known to be one of the few museums in the world that focuses exclusively on African Diaspora culture and on presenting the rich cultural heritage of the people of Africa and of African descendant cultures 2 all across the globe.
Their mission is to explore and discover the culture, history, and art of people of African descent; celebrating Black cultures, igniting challenging conversations, and inspiring learning through the global lens of the African Diaspora.
They explore four (4) core themes that define their exhibitions and programs:
As the foundation for framing up their thinking about the kinds of exhibits (both permanent and temporary) that they present.Their focus spans the African Diaspora across history, from the origin of human existence through the contemporary African Diaspora that has affected communities and cultures around the world.
Understand the design research process via redesign of MoAD's logo, stationary components, and website
This is where I defined MOAD; which is an essential step in creating a genuine brand and visual identity. These 5 key attributes are a set quantity of purposeful adjectives reflecting the brand's character and aspirations.
This mood board was designed to bring to light the qualities that the museum brings to mind. I gathered reference images per attribute from a variety of sources to do just that.
The goal is momentum over perfection! Here the aim was to freehand sketch around 40-50 logos with creativity in the driver's seat. Of the 50 logo variations I'd rapidly sketched, after a few feedback sessions, the 3 (boxed in gold) were the chosen ones!
After soliciting feedback and identifying a solid idea with the 50 logos, 3 of them were selected and refined based on how well they aligned to MoAD's mission and new key attributes. The rigidness and tribal-like play on the characters were the definite key deciding factors of selection — but the variety of sketches made it so hard to choose!
Using Adobe Fonts, 2 type families, 1 for titles and subheads and another for body copy, were selected and systemically deployed throughout my design system. For the headlines, the Noto Serif Bold selection stood pretty strong — which is what I was looking for — and its character form matched really well with the lowercase logo type font. The body copy's Noto Sans selection was the perfect match of sans to complement the serif.
Using Adobe Color, a custom color palette for my brand was created, composed of 5 colors, each labelled with their respective RGB, CMYK, and HEX values. The 2 colors I'd selected as primary (labelled P1 & P2) gave off a sense of boldest and exhibited strength — colors that can stand out on their own but together create a powerful force. The 3 secondary colors (labelled S1, S2, & S3) complemented the primaries and their counterparts so well — just enough of boldness to draw attention but subtle enough to let the primary colors shine.
The business card consisted of the museum's logo, card holder's name and title, contact information, the museum's full address and website. I also decided to use the rigidness of the uppercase characters and logo type to create corner designs with the Primary Colors — which you will see throughout the stationary components as well.
The letterhead consisted of MOAD's logo, full address, website, sender's name and title, sender's contact information, and sender's signature on letter. I also utilized the primary and secondary colors to highlight some of the components of the copy and to add a bit of flavor.
The envelope consists of MOAD's logo, full address, website, and designated area for stamp. I also added the final touch of the continent at the back as the seal to complement the branding.
The two-page brochure consists of the cover — MoAD's logo, website, and headline of promoted event.
The inside spread — typographic layout using the multi-column grid system, and denotative/connotative imagery.
The back cover — MoAD's logo, address, website, and contact information.
This brochure was pretty interesting to design, and I definitely enjoyed playing around with the layout, coloring and branding style — utilizing the rigid shapes in any way that I could.
The website represents the crescendo of MoAD's identity and the primary point of contact for the customer. No fictional copy was included as I wanted to keep the authenticity of the current state of the website while showcasing its redesign and bold, unique style.
