MSU BROAD
REBRAND
Making the art museum more inviting to students and the Lansing community
REBRANDING
SPATIAL DESIGN
The Big, Silver Blob in the Middle of MSU CAMPUS
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid, is a striking architectural landmark; an angular, silver building that stands out boldly against the traditional, collegiate character of MSU’s North Campus. Yet despite its iconic presence in the heart of a campus with more than 50,000 students, the museum attracts only about 200 undergraduate and graduate visitors each month.
1
STRENGTHEN OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
Expand the museum’s online reach by aligning content with student interests and social media trends, creating engaging and relatable storytelling across platforms.
2
REBRANDING THE MUSEUM IDENTITY
Redefine the Broad’s visual system with a warmer color palette, flexible logo, and approachable tone to create a more inviting student experience.
How do we make the museum more inviting?
The challenge became clear: how could we transform this big, silver landmark into a place students actually wanted to enter? Our answer was twofold:
How Do We Reach Students Online?
One of the biggest barriers students mentioned was simply not knowing about events, so we overhauled the museum’s social media presence. Posts were redesigned with the refreshed color palette, approachable typography to create a consistent and eye-catching style.
Event graphics became bolder, more dynamic, and easier to scan, helping them stand out in crowded feeds. We collaborated with students directly in the design process and shifted toward using more engaging photography, showcasing people, behind-the-scenes moments, and lively events so that content felt relatable and student-centered. Social media became the museum’s primary channel for invitations and connection.
So Where Does This Leave Us?
Although the full rebrand couldn’t be implemented due to copyright and legal constraints, the process opened the door for transformation. By refining the logo, introducing a warmer palette, expanding linework into a dynamic pattern, and reimagining collateral, we created a vision for a more approachable, student-centered museum. The work revealed key insights into student perceptions and established a foundation for future updates, showing that design extends beyond aesthetics to bridge institutions and their communities.
This project also strengthened my design approach. I learned to balance creativity with institutional limitations, adapt existing systems with intention, and collaborate across disciplines. Most importantly, it reinforced that effective design isn’t just about visual appeal, it’s about creating solutions that respond to real audiences and make spaces feel inclusive and accessible.
Core Neutrals:
Black and off-white provide strong contrast and ensure readability across print and digital platforms.
Vibrant Accents:
Emerald green, sky blue, and purple balance approachability with a sense of creativity.
High-Energy Highlights:
Lime, magenta, and orange inject personality and draw attention to student-centered materials like event posters and social media graphics.
How Can Color Help Create a Warmer Experience?
The Broad’s exterior, bold, silver, and angular, often reinforced perceptions of the museum as cold and uninviting. To soften this impression, we developed a refreshed palette that introduced warmer and more energetic tones while retaining the sophistication of the original identity.
This palette created flexibility across applications, bold enough to stand out on digital feeds, yet refined enough for gallery contexts. Most importantly, the colors reframed the museum’s visual tone to feel inviting, dynamic, and student-friendly, turning the silver landmark into a space that communicates energy and inclusivity.
Why is the Blob Getting a Lack of Visitors?
To answer this question, our communications team interviewed students around campus.
Through student surveys, we discovered that many college students found the museum intimidating or uninviting from the outside, which often innately discouraged them from stepping inside. Others admitted they rarely heard about events, and some felt the art didn’t connect with their interests. Together, these insights highlighted why the museum wasn’t resonating with the student community.
“The building feels odd and kind of unwelcoming.”
“I never knew if it was open to students or if it was just for special events.”
“I’ve seen it in the Batman movie, but I didn’t even know that it’s a campus art museum.”
Where Do We Begin?
We began by redesigning the logo, which was once a striking but restrictive reflection of Zaha Hadid’s architecture. The original angular mark and lengthy name made the identity feel formal and hard to use. To make it more approachable, we introduced a typographic system centered on MSU BAM, a familiar student acronym. With both square and angled versions, the new wordmark offers flexibility while preserving the museum’s original typography. This shift from architectural icon to student-focused identity made the brand more readable, adaptable, and inviting.
TEAMLINE
3 months (2024)
TOOLS
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
TEAM
Molly Killingbeck
Sherrye Zhong
How Can We Honor the Old While Moving Forward?
To maintain continuity with the museum’s identity, the signature linework from the original logo was reimagined as a flexible pattern. Instead of remaining a static architectural mark, it became a scalable element used across materials, from subtle backdrops on staff name tags to bold, dynamic visuals on student-facing posters and signage. This evolution preserved the Broad’s distinctive geometry while creating a cohesive, approachable, and versatile visual language for students.
What About Our Existing Materials?
With a new rebrand means new collateral. Many of the museum’s existing print and digital materials needed to be brought in line with the new brand system. I updated flyers, posters, and name tags using the refreshed palette, MSU BAM wordmark, and linework patterns, creating a cohesive look across student-facing materials. On the digital side, newsletters, web graphics, and social media posts were redesigned with cleaner hierarchy and brighter visuals, making information easier to find and more engaging to interact with. These updates gave the Broad a consistent, modern presence across platforms and helped strengthen recognition among students.
Shouldn’t the Refresh Extend to Merchandise?
As part of the rebrand, we refreshed the museum’s merchandise, an important touchpoint since it is often the first interaction students and visitors have with the Broad. Magnets, pins, shirts, and tote bags became vehicles for carrying the new identity beyond the building and into daily life.
We introduced magnets featuring the square MSU BAM wordmark and the museum’s beloved sheep, a character already popular with students. T-shirts highlighted important and popular works from the museum’s collection, while screen-printed tote bags integrated MSU symbols and the refreshed pattern system. By treating merchandise as part of the brand experience, the museum’s identity was not just seen in galleries or posters, but also worn, carried, and displayed across campus.
