Kellenberger–White’s collaboration with the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) offers an invaluable case study in how to shape a strong, cohesive brand from bottom-up processes, user input and community consultation. 

The visual identity is a constantly evolving response to MIMA’s idea of the ‘useful’ museum – a museum that maintains its relevance to the local context. 

We began in 2016 when over the course of a year we regularly visited MIMA, researched the local area and ran workshops with both staff and the general public. In these we invited participants to reflect on their expectations of the museum and on the relationship between art and society in general. Their responses formed two exhibitions and the typographic systems we invented to output and display these formed the basis of MIMA’s new visual identity.

Since then we have continued developing various methods of community engagement to aid in the expansion of the brand architecture. This currently encompasses a new school of art and design, a café and wayfinding. We have also redesigned the website to incorporate MIMA’s archive, comprehensive online collection and information about its extensive programme.