Saffron worked in partnership with London’s V&A to capture the essence of this world-leading museum and deliver a brand experience that could support their ambitions for national and international expansion.
The V&A was founded after the Great Exhibition of 1851 with a simple aim: to raise the standard of British design and make works of art available to all. Today, it is home to over 2.3 million objects, from architecture to haute-couture. The collection examines and honours the role of design throughout history, from the epic to the everyday. The V&A serves an invaluable role in educating and energising new generations of thinkers and makers.
The museum was at one of the most successful periods in its history. As well as welcoming record visitor numbers, V&A opened new sites in Dundee and East London in 2018, as well as in Shenzhen, China in 2017. With a period of transformation, alongside national and international expansion ahead, the museum wanted to take the opportunity to refresh the brand and ensure that it resonated with the new, broader audience.
To create a truly iconic international brand, V&A wanted to ensure visitors understood that the museum went beyond the “Victoria and Albert” of its name. They wanted to define everything they stood for, and to ensure that this essence could be experienced by visitors across all their locations.
The challenge was to capture the true essence of the V&A – a place that had inspired visitors for generations. How to tell that story in a way that elevates, rather than reduces, who the V&A is? And how to tell it in a way that resonates with those who know the museum well and to those who are discovering it for the first time?
