The Tate was set up in the year 2000 as a channel containing four museums Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, and Tate St Ives. The Tate Britain houses British artworks from the 1500’s up to this day; Tate Modern has a number of contemporary art and international modern artworks; Tate Liverpool has a collection of contemporary art, British art, and international modern art; Tate St Ives houses modern British artworks.

The architects Herzog & de Meuron designed the Tate Modern museum, which was opened to public in May 2000. Tate redesigned its logo coinciding with the opening of its new building. This event was a revolutionary and took Tate to great heights. The London-based North Design redrew the new logo for Tate in 2016. The agency simplified the logo by comprising the digital spaces and the four galleries into one single logo rather than creating multiple variations of the logo. It simplified Tate’s branding in order to get better recognition in the media.

Flexible Identities

The old logo was put forward by Wolff Olins, which was modified to create the new logo. It is said that the designers chose the new logo from 75 different logo options that were given to them. The good part of it was that North Design did not scrap the entire thing, but instead went “deep clean”.

North provided the following statement in its press release:

“For us to propose getting rid of the identity system entirely would be irresponsible and a selfish act as designers. Instead, we built on the existing brand equity, refreshed and strengthened what was working well. The original system of multiple logos was developed to communicate Tate’s ‘Look again, Think again’ philosophy on print, there was an opportunity to consider how the marque could exist across a range of media.”

Stephen Gilmore, Partner at North Design said, “We’ve moved from multiple logo variations to just one, simplified to work across all applications. We wanted to create one logo which was still recognizably Tate but could be used more dynamically and exist more effectively in the digital world.”

The new logo was made using only 340 dots while the old logos were made up of 3000 dots. This logo has made its space everywhere now, starting from commonly used plastic bags to the canvas shoes.