In dialogue with the exhibition History is Painted by the Victors by Kent Monkman, the visual identity for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Museum Ball 2025 navigates between institutional heritage and contemporary expression, translating a tension between structure and expressive disruption.

Design by Caserne using Ninna Regular by Margot Lévêque, supported by Suisse Works by Swiss Typefaces.

For the Saints, Sinners, Lovers & Fools exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Caserne studio designed a striking visual campaign that celebrates the great Flemish masters such as Hans Memling, Rubens, van Dyck, Jordaens, and Michaelina Wautier. The graphic design blends classical art with contemporary elements, using the Sigurd typeface by Blaze Type. This typographic choice adds a modern contrast to the baroque artworks on display, reinforcing the idea of a dialogue between art history and current design. The campaign was widely deployed, featuring posters, billboards, and a strong digital presence, especially on social media.

To ensure inclusivity and attract new audiences, Caserne collaborated with Scorpion Dagger to create four video capsules for social media. These humorous and engaging videos provide a fresh, offbeat take on Flemish art, making the works more accessible and appealing to a broader audience. By combining Scorpion Dagger’s creativity with Caserne’s clean graphic approach, the campaign highlights the continued relevance of Flemish masterpieces in contemporary society while democratizing access to art.

The project included services ranging from advertising campaigns to exhibition design. Inside the exhibition, headlines in Sigurd are paired with Roslindale. The sans serif is the Museum’s brand typeface, Habitus MBAM.

From The Brand Identity:

On show at Montreal’s Palais des congrès between October 21 and January 22, Recharger Unwind is an immersive showcase of the world’s most prominent digital artists. Featuring 10 generative works, the exhibition is intended to be a stimulating yet soothing sensory walkthrough; leaving attendees feeling positively regenerated.

Taking on the task of branding the exhibition, Montreal-based design studio Caserne focused on a combination of warm colours and textures in order to evoke the aforementioned sensory nature of the experience.

Uniting the contrasting feeling between the gradients and the grid system is Caserne’s flowing custom typeface. “The idea of bringing custom glyphs with large inktraps to the typeface was to express the digital aspect of the exhibition,” [Art Director Étienne Murphy] explains, adding that “it is also evoking pixels and the portal between different dimensions.” Providing the final piece of the puzzle is Nizar Kazan’s TWK Lausanne, which brings a grounding structure to the identity through its straightforward sans serif construction.

Photography: François Ollivier

Canadian creative studio Caserne designed the September 2018 catalogue of Montreal-based wine importation company La Régie.

They reproduced the shapes of various bottles at their real size and used them as graphic elements for the chapters, paired with pictures of food directly inspired by Portugal, the theme of the catalogue.

Caserne designed an identity for Belgian honey producer Luc Sauté. Illustrations by Anabel Roy.