BORED. Museum

Freelance Art Director, Website Designer

+ Brand development (concept)
+ Logo, style guide, & identity system
+ Website and graphic design

August 2021 - November 2021

Project Overview

introducing bored. museum

In a project that began the summer of 2021, I directed the concept for a digital art museum as a freelancer. BORED. Museum was a new organization that aimed to freely share art and donate to support burgeoning art creators. Rather than the clean white edges of giants like MoMa, my brief asked for something strange, wondrous, filled with grit. In the process, I delved out of my comfort zone and learned how to create a unique visual identity that sticks. After all, how edgy is too edgy?

THE PROCESS

The goal of the BORED branding was to be futuristic and memorable— a web presence that would reflect their title as explorers in a developing field. Initially, I had issues with wordmarks being too boring (haha), edgy, or grungy; and ended up playing around with the 3D tools in Illustrator. None of the early logos were perfect, but the 2D vertical rectangular one struck a chord with me.

See 2D: the 2nd element in 2nd row

I ended up refining it and using it as a base for my final logo, where I came to a striking hexagonal shape that incorporated imagery reminiscent of Ethereum.

Visual motifs

The brand components I designed represent the unique experiences and core values of BORED. Museum: experimentation, diversification, and distinction, as well as their brand personality: contemporary, innovative, and empowering. These traits stem from the diverse NFT community that is built on all kinds of art styles (seriously, see Peter Tarka, then Weird Whales). There are a wealth of artists creating NFTs, and being such a new medium, things are ever-changing. The degree of experimentation present is reflected in the oddity of BORED’s brand identity, being distinct and completely unlike what is expected of a museum. Gone are the headings in helvetica-esque typefaces and pure white; my intention was to create something that represented experimentation: something striking that both looked and felt bold. I thought black accented with red encompassed this best because of how extreme the color is, and its associations with strength. Being an ode to a digital reality, the 3D elements give everything dimension— adding a skeuomorphic element to a completely online experience.

The actual execution of this was a tricky subject because the possibility of using pure white or black is eliminated in dark mode due to eye strain (Jason Harrison, 2019). Furthermore, colors need to be a lot less saturated to be readable. After a lot of tinkering with the HSB system, I still made my color system minimal to place more emphasis on artwork.

logo in application

My primary typeface for headings was Monument Extended by Pangram Pangram (shameless plug I love their fonts). I thought the sans-serif embodied the empowering and distinct personality of BORED because it is uniquely broad and stretched. I added a lot of tracking to make it readable, and paired it with Acumin Pro Wide— a neo-grotesque readable on web and print. Both are sans-serifs with powerful presences and little contrast, perfect for my type heavy designs.
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My final logo and the fonts were featured in ticket variations I created for the NFT.NYC conference. The annual event features workshops from leading names in blockchain, recently attracting a record crowd of 5,000, plus a 3,000-person wait list.