Newcastle Museum

Headjam was engaged as Newcastle Museum's Creative Agency to develop a brand identity and promotional advertising campaign for the relaunch of the Newcastle Museum. Our approach was to design a visual identity system that boldly breaks the perception of a traditional museum space.

The Headjam creative team set about creating designs that capture the true character of this significant cultural institution while enhancing the visitor experience. The brandmark designed by Headjam is based on the negative space of the capital letters N and M. The triangles that arise from this shape stand proudly, like beacons, and are striking and memorable.

As part of the advertising campaign we produced an award-winning (Melbourne Design Awards 2011) photographic advertising campaign that was created to capture the imagination of the Novocastrian public and visitors alike. The campaign represents the present meeting the past, the new generation connecting with history. The idea also explores the unique experience each individual has when visiting the museum - we each choose to see what we want to see. The creative concept was to invoke a sense of exploration, imagination and story. This is a constant theme through our ongoing work with Newcastle Museum. Headjam's creative team wants to capture the truth that a museum is a place where stories and memories come to life!

The characters photographed represent each component of the museum. They are primarily children, representing the generations of the future learning about the past and, as a result, their own identity in the present. Each image represents a different theme. There are five themes in total, three based on the Museum's permanent collections ("The Newcastle Story", "Fire and Earth" and "Supernova") as well as 'events' and 'education'.

newcastlemuseum.com.au