When it comes to brand identity, a font style can serve a complex function. And while letterforms, spacing and style all play a role, a purposeful font design can go beyond simple aesthetics to convey both emotions and a message.

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) wanted to attract a younger and more diverse audience, so it enlisted Leo Burnett to help transform its brand into a dynamic presence.

The museum has a lot to offer: it’s Canada’s largest museum, as well as a world-renowned institution of art, culture and natural history; and its expansive collections feature over 13 million artifacts. Yet those attributes were apparently not enough to attract the audiences ROM was looking to reach. 

As a result, the new brand identity had a lot to reflect and represent. Its design had to capture the enormous scale of ROM’s collections – objects ranging from prehistoric civilizations to modern art. It had to house a wide range of content from different cultures and time periods. While ROM carries a lot of history, the design needed to exude boldness and project a contemporary feel, while also feeling timeless. And finally, the new identity needed to be adaptable for numerous applications, across museum signage, uniforms, editorial and advertising – essentially every touchpoint of the museum.

The concept began with the fact that the ROM captures the history of the planet: 13 million artifacts meant 13 million moments in time from the past 4.2 billion years. 

The new identity, which won a Gold at AToMiC, regarded every object as a single stitch along that vast timeline. So the rebrand, in the fall of 2022, included a new wordmark, custom typeface and original photography. ROM Coign, the new typeface, was designed to evoke the timeline while also pushing the limits of condensed typography. Every character represented a single stitch in time, all knit together in one “Immortal” timeline. The typeface was able to expand and contract, to create the sensation of diving into single moments of history and to also zoom out to reveal its scope. 

The launch kicked off with a Union Station domination, featuring custom photography with over 100 objects and artifacts in a dynamic timeline. The ROM itself, meanwhile, featured an event installation, where the timeline was projected onto the walls of the museum and enveloped visitors to make them feel like a living part of that timeline.

 For posters and collateral, each piece acted as a single moment in history, but when viewed together, they represented the whole tapestry of the timeline. Visitors could even select a piece of the timeline from the museum shop to bring home with them.

When a study was conducted to understand the brand awareness, perception and brand health of the ROM, the results showed an increase in the museum as a top-of-mind venue, indicating positive results in its new branding strategy and visual identity. 

Annual admissions also increased from more than 456,000 to one million, a year-over-year increase of 119%, reflecting the success of the brand’s refresh, programming and special exhibitions to draw in visitors. Ultimately, ROM’s new visual identity brought fresh energy to the museum.

In 2023, the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) tapped Rethink to provide a brand identity for its RGD Branding Awards, a new program celebrating the best in branding and design from around the globe. 

The AToMiC Gold-winning identity needed to attract a panel of international design judges and motivate design studios from around the world to submit entries. To celebrate the most notable global work in branding and design, inspiration was drawn from branding’s most overlooked symbol: the registered trademark (®). 

A custom typeface was designed called Registered Grotesk, using nothing more than the trademark symbol. It featured more than 160 unique characters, multi-language support and a host of OpenType features.

A dynamic suite of graphics was created for static and moving executions – exclusively using the registered trademark system – and used in both print and digital materials. The symbol was also used to painstakingly recreate portraits of each of the judges, providing them a bespoke asset for social media. 

Ultimately, nothing but the symbol was used to create the entire brand system. Upon launch, the new identity helped RGD attract a line-up of jury members from around the world.

Reception from the design community was positive, including that of Brand New, the leading source for opinions on branding and identity design. The new identity won a Design Lion in the “Creation of a New Brand Identity” category at the 2023 Cannes Lions, making the RGD Branding Awards one of only three entries from around the world to do so, out of a possible 985 submissions. 

Most importantly, the design system helped RGD Branding Awards become the association’s most successful program launch to date, surpassing projected revenue from entry fees by over 200%.