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AUB Graphic Design students create a new brand identity for National Lottery Heritage Funded Our Museum project | Poole Museum

The project was developed collaboratively between Dr Alex Reynolds, Our Museum Collections and Engagement Officer for Poole Museum and Senior Lecturer and AUB Human founder, Alice Stevens.

Alice tells us about how the project began: ‘We were delighted that Poole Museum came to us for help with this project, initially they just wanted a logo, but in our first conversation we realised that for us to do justice to the project we needed to start at the beginning and create a clear brand proposition if we were to explore how the museum might engage new audiences.’

The National Lottery Heritage Funded Our Museum project aims to develop a new maritime gallery and museum space at Poole Museum with Poole’s community at its heart. The project is anchored in the history, heritage, space and place of Poole through engagement with Poole Museum’s buildings and collections. It aims to bring these assets to life in creative ways through collaboration and participation with diverse local audiences and seeks to create a sustainable, relevant, contemporary cultural space, reflective of the needs and interests of its audiences.

The project, which was set as a challenge to Level 5 BA (Hons) Graphic Design students as part of their unit, involved primary research in the creation of a brand proposition, the design of assets for various brand touchpoints across digital and physical, a set of brand guidelines to identify how the visual system could be used and a logo.

Alice Stevens added: ‘This knowledge exchange project has been mutually beneficial, demonstrating how AUB and Poole Museum can collaborate in the sharing of ideas and expertise to create a unique brand identity that is appropriate for the project context and speaks to the community with whom it serves. It has been an amazing opportunity for the students to engage in a live brief as well as gaining exposure for their work. It has been a pleasure working with the museum and Dr Alex Reynolds, who has shared her time generously to brief the students and give feedback on their pitch presentations’.

Dr Alex Reynolds said: ‘We at the museum have been struck by the incredibly high standard of the work produced by the students in such a short timeframe. We were particularly impressed with way the groups analysed the core motivations of the Our Museum project, and the way this conceptual understanding framed innovative visualisations and designs which really got under the skin of the project’.

Dr Alex Reynolds continued: ‘It was a really difficult task to arrive at the shortlist, but after

much discussion we managed to narrow it down to eleven projects.’