Royal Ontario Museum

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is Canada’s largest museum, a world-renowned institution of art, world culture and natural history. Its expansive collections with over 13 million artifacts was simply not enough to appeal to a more diverse and younger audience anymore. Our objective was to jolt and overhaul every touchpoint of the museum to help transform ROM into a dynamic presence for the 21st century.

Services

Photography

Mike Tjioe
Saty and Pratha

Custom Typography

Colophon

Our design challenge was to convey the enormous scale of ROM’s collections—objects dating from prehistoric civilizations to modern art over the past 4.2 billion years—in a distinct brand identity that could encompass it all. It had to possess a bold and contemporary energy to attract new audiences, while possessing the longevity to be timeless. And it needed to be adaptive to work across every touchpoint of the visitor’s experience.

The centerpiece of ROM’s new identity is ROM Coign, a custom typeface designed as a living timeline. Its hyper-condensed characters act as individual “stitches in time” that knit history together. By expanding and contracting, the typeface allows for a dynamic shift in perspective—moving from the intimate detail of a single moment to the immense scale of our collective past.

ROM’s new visual identity brought a fresh energy into the museum, creating a new heartbeat in the city and resonating with art and culture lovers.