Leopold Museum: new corporate design by c satek to kick-start new exhibition year.

31.03.2016

Hans-Peter Wipplinger: “Dissolving borders and giving more space to art”

Vienna (OTS) – The Leopold Museum has kick-started the new spring season with a relaunch of its corporate design. The upcoming exhibitions on Wilhelm Lehmbruck, the most eminent sculptor of German Expressionism, and on the contemporary Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere – both of which will be on display at the Leopold Museum from 8th April – will already be presented in the guise of this new graphic design.

Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the new Museological Director of the Leopold Museum, was able to bring the renowned advertiser Christian Satek, who has extensive experience in the fields of art and culture, on board for this exciting but delicate task. During a few months of dedicated commitment, Satek’s agency managed to create an entirely new pictorial language together with the Directors of the Leopold Museum Hans-Peter Wipplinger and Gabriele Langer, Tina Zelenka (marketing) and Nina Haider (graphic design).

Hans-Peter Wipplinger: “The exhibition program I initiated comprises extraordinary art from the past two centuries. This new corporate design evokes a classic and timeless but also modern impression and is thus suitable both for art from the 19th century as well as for contemporary art”.

The redesign represents a consistent but unconventional progression from the museum’s previous corporate design. Using the font “The Sans Plain”, the new graphic appearance is based on the existing logo which has become well-established throughout the fifteen years of the museum’s existence and consists of the lettering LEOPOLD MUSEUM and a figure from a Schiele sketch.

“While the writing and the subject used to be strictly separate, these borders have now been dissolved in order to give more space to the art and the subject”, according to the Leopold Museum’s Director. The logo and all other written information, such as the title and duration of the exhibitions, appear as if they had been cut with scissors from the previous monochrome header bar, with the resulting bands of writing being “pasted” onto the subject. The edges of these bands were given a deliberately asymmetrical appearance. The design is reminiscent of Jamie Reid’s legendary cover for the album NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS of the punk band Sex Pistols (1977) as well as of décollages ranging from the Dada to Mimmo Rotella and Asger Jorn.

Christian Satek has effortlessly turned this urban and trashy approach into a highly elegant line. The paper bands leave a maximum amount of pictorial surface while still giving the necessary support to the subjects. “It was important to me that the new visual guise should reference the exhibition posters created by Secession artists like Schiele and Klimt, which still appear radical today”, explains Christian Satek.

The new design can be found on all printed advertising material, including exhibition posters, invitations, folders and banners, as well as all press material, advertisements and the Leopold Museum’s electronic newsletter. The museum’s website will also be gradually adjusted to reflect the new design.

Christian Satek is one of the most renowned Austrian designers in the field of brand development and communication design who has created legendary campaigns for brands such as Palmers and Römerquelle, among others. His agency has developed the visual identities of clients including Postbus, Knize, Kurkonditorei Oberlaa and Agrarmarkt Austria. A main emphasis of his work is on cultural institutions such as the Albertina, the Wien Museum, the Theater an der Wien and the Liechtenstein Museum. (www.satek.at).

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