Rebranding a Community Treasure
In creating a new brand for the Fitchburg Art Museum, Wilcox Design was charged with creating an identity that both reflected its rich history—nearly 100 years as a key participant and leader in the Fitchburg cultural community—and demonstrate the museum’s future vision of innovation and inclusiveness.
A new visual look and updated brand narrative would publicly recognize the work the museum has been doing for nearly a decade to welcome every member of the diverse Fitchburg community, including an innovative bilingual initiative.
The new brand identity forefronts the FAM acronym with a typographic design that reflects the museum’s culture of openness—everyone is welcome in the FAMily—while boldly asserting its mission to bring groundbreaking, high-quality art offerings to the community.
Design Vision
The design of the logo is bold, elegant and confident and evokes the inventive and industrial history of Fitchburg. The interconnected letterforms are open and welcoming, creating multiple pathways that lead you into the heart of FAM. All points of entry are wide open, allowing you to connect with your own creative spirit—and with the creativity in the community.
While FAM welcomes all and creates programming to invite all visitors to explore art and their own creativity, the museum’s brand needs to reflect its long history and deep commitment to offering art programming at the highest level—bringing the best to Fitchburg, and inviting visitors from throughout New England and beyond to experience the unique curatorial vision and often challenging exhibitions that reflect FAM today.
The brand system incorporates multiple colorways, reflecting the energy and diversity of the museum’s programming and its community, and providing tools for creating a unified identity across all of the museum’s communication materials.
Within the design you will also see a nod to Thurston, the welcoming sculpture at the museum's main entrance.
A Brand that Creates Connections
Wilcox Design worked with brand strategist Kim Carlin to engage the FAM community in the brand development process and to build the FAM messaging framework. The strategy phase of the project needed to weave together the goals and expectations of a diverse group of stakeholders with the work FAM has been doing as a participant with the Massachusetts Cohort of cultural organizations implementing an evidence-based messaging framework to engage communities in the arts developed by Creating Connection—a national social change movement focused on advancing the position of arts, culture, and creative expression in our nation.
FAM believes that museums belong to people and communities, bringing together innovative ideas and diverse viewpoints that foster human connections through art. Great art is for everyone and everyone deserves to connect with great art.
According to FAM Director Nick Capasso: