The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, established in 1937, is a renowned institution dedicated to promoting modern and contemporary art on a global scale. The foundation manages a network of prestigious museums, including the iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. In 2025, the organization plans to expand its reach with the opening of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. To better reflect its global cultural significance and unite its diverse activities under a cohesive brand, the foundation recently unveiled a new visual identity designed by Harry Pearce of Pentagram.
Pearce’s task was to create a versatile and unified identity system, which would represent all the foundation’s museums and initiatives. This new identity centers on a fresh logo and visual system that preserves the heritage of the foundation while introducing innovative elements to connect its global audience.
The Legacy of the Old Logo
The Guggenheim’s previous logo, introduced in 1992, was deeply tied to the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building of the New York museum. Inspired by the building’s signage, the original logo featured geometric typography that became synonymous with the museum and, by extension, the entire foundation. In 2013, Abbott Miller, also a Pentagram designer, updated the logo to refine its modernist aesthetic. This visual identity served not only the New York museum but also other Guggenheim locations worldwide, becoming a hallmark in the art world.
Fresh Logo Design
The updated logo takes a bold step forward while retaining elements of the original identity. The new design features thicker, more compact lettering with noticeable changes, like a tighter aperture in the ‘G’s and flatter forms in the “N” and “M” compared to their sharper angles in the previous iteration. These adjustments give the logo a contemporary yet timeless aesthetic, maintaining its connection to the foundation’s legacy while introducing a sense of modernity.
One of the standout features of the redesign is the “G” symbol, an abstract and versatile visual mark derived from the new logo. This symbol not only reflects the geometric architecture of Guggenheim museums but also acts as a unifying emblem across the foundation’s diverse branding needs. It is used as a standalone element in both static and animated formats, allowing for dynamic visual expressions while preserving consistency.
Typography and Color Palette
The foundation’s updated typographic system is anchored by Guggenheim Sans, a customized version of the open-source font Inter by Rasmus Andersson. Designed to harmonize with the logo, it includes a secondary variant, Guggenheim Sans Display, for larger and more expressive applications. An Arabic adaptation of the typeface was also developed to support the forthcoming Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, highlighting the foundation’s commitment to global accessibility. For complementary text, the brand uses Playfair, a serif typeface by Klaus Eggert Sørensen, which adds an elegant contrast to the sans-serif type.
The color palette takes a minimalist approach, dominated by dark tones such as black, gray, and deep blue, which is so inherent to cultural institutions (in this regard, we can recall the visual identity of PAC NYC). These are balanced by soft pastel accents, chosen for their subtlety and their ability to complement the artwork and spaces within the museums. This restrained yet versatile color system ensures that the brand’s materials enhance, rather than overshadow, the foundation’s artistic content.
Conclusion
Overall, the rebranding of the Guggenheim brand showed a fairly reasonable approach, taking into account the departure from a purely New York style, which should also emphasize the importance of the non-American museums of the foundation, as well as the introduction of a new original symbol. The changes may seem too modest to someone for such a serious organization, but on the other hand, it is precisely such world-famous institutions that are characterized by conservatism in the name of preserving traditions.
