Client: Museum of Modern Art
Advisor: Mark Kingsley
Design: Saloni Soni, Janavi Kothari, Alejandra Bellosta and Alejandro Largo
Strategy: Arunima Agarwal, Olivia Barry, Alejandra Bellosta, Saloni Soni and Alejandro Largo

 

Overview
As part of the Masters in Branding at The School of Visual Arts we worked with The Museum of Modern Art to rethink their branded merchandise being sold in their stores.

Our challenge was to come up with solutions that leverage the museum's mission and history.

 

Strategy
As we began looking into MoMA's history, we noticed how the museum has stayed true to its mission — "...to create a dialogue between the established and the experimental, the past and the present..." — by constantly questioning our definition of modern and contemporary art, and even questioning the role the museum plays in the larger context of society.

A recurring theme we encountered during our research was the relationship between art and language and how MoMA has been at the forefront of curating exhibitions that defy our perception of the role of language in art.

 

We took a look at other museums and assessed their role in language. We found that:

 

Whitney = adjective
The political nature of the art describes the experience.

 

Guggenheim = adverb
The shape of the building describes the experience.

 

The Met = noun
The experience centers around the physical place.

 

MoMA = verb
The experience transforms our perception of things.

 

Outcome
As we started thinking about the application of our strategy, we explored how far we could push language.

Taking inspiration from artists such as Christopher Wool, Ed Ruscha and Jenny Holzer we proposed several possible directions where we created a unique use (and misuse) of language.