National Galleries Scotland

The National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh is a cornerstone of the country’s cultural landscape, housing an extensive collection of artworks across three distinct galleries: the National, the Modern, and the Portrait. Each gallery offers visitors a unique lens through which to explore art—from historic masterpieces to contemporary works, and from intimate portraits to sweeping narratives of national and international significance. Together, they provide a rich, multifaceted experience of Scotland’s artistic heritage and its ongoing dialogue with the wider world of art.

In 2023, the Galleries embarked on a bold visual transformation, enlisting London design agency DNCO to reimagine their brand identity. The aim was to create a design system that not only reflected the depth and diversity of the Galleries’ collection but also opened up the experience of art to a wider audience, encouraging discovery, curiosity, and engagement.

From their website:

Wishing to open up experience of art as well as grow awareness of the nation’s collection, research led to a brand centred around the ideas of discovery.

One of art’s greatest values is its ability to offer different perspectives on the world around us. Our marque articulates this in a reduced and powerfully graphic way. Two opposing planes interlock to create a form that is at once looking forwards and backwards, inwards and outwards. It reflects how art invites us to consider other points of view and the layers of meaning we can discover within artworks, and how we can all explore these hidden stories.

Just as art can be a portal into different worlds, it has a dimensional and kinetic quality that, combined with sheared typography – a custom cut of Caslon Doric by Paul Barnes of Commercial Type – gives a dynamism and energy to the words it contains.