Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is Canada’s largest museum, a world-renowned institution of art, world culture and natural history. However, its expansive collections with over 13 million artifacts were simply not enough to appeal to a more diverse and younger audience anymore. Our objective was to jolt and overhaul every touch-point of the museum to help transform ROM into a dynamic presence for the 21st century.

Our purpose was to convey the enormous scale of ROM’s collections — objects dating from prehistoric civilizations to modern art over the past 4.2 billion years — in a distinct brand identity that could encompass it all. And it needed to be adaptive to work across every touch-point of the visitors’ experience, across hundreds of applications, from museum signage to wayfinding, to collateral, editorial, and advertising.

The new visual identity of ROM captures the history of our planet. Thirteen million moments in time — bones, beasts, butterflies, portraits, sculptures, textiles, art, culture, nature — from the past 4.2 billion years. Each object is like a stitch along the vast timeline of our collective history. To help illustrate this timeline, custom photography was commissioned for ROM. Hundreds of objects from various collections were captured on a simple white background, each giving the sensation of witnessing a single moment in time. ROM curators were also photographed. Highly regarded experts in their respective areas of study, each curatorial photoshoot was tailored to highlight their expertise and captured through an editorial lens. It was a far departure from typical curatorial photography; establishing a distinct visual perspective for ROM and complementing its new visual identity.