Pentagram has designed the new identity and program of environmental graphics for the Seattle Art Museum that reopened to the public in 2007 after a 95,000 square foot expansion designed by Allied Works Architecture. The identity helps to integrate the expansion into the existing building designed by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates and the museum with its two sister locations in the city.

The Seattle Art Museum is unique in that it is comprised of “one museum in three locations:” the downtown Seattle Art Museum; the Olympic Sculpture Park, recently built on an undeveloped piece of waterfront within walking distance of the museum; and the Seattle Asian Art Museum, located nearby in Volunteer Park. The identity unifies the three sites and creates a common, recognizable identifier: SAM. The identity was launched with a capital campaign for the museum entitled “I Am SAM.”

Individual identities were designed for each venue by adding a signature to the acronym. The three signature lines separated by printer rules on the individual identities represent the three museums. The typeface the designers chose for the identity is the modern, sans serif Gotham.

SAM’s stated mission is to integrate art into life and the new three-story exterior sign designed for the downtown location is indicative of this goal. Situated on a busy street, the museum is flanked by neon signs. The new SAM sign, reminiscent of its neon neighbors, integrates the steel and glass curtain wall of the museum into the eclectic urban environment. 

This theme of integrating the signage into the materials and environment of the specific venue was carried over into the Olympic Sculpture Park, which has transformed Seattle’s last undeveloped downtown waterfront property, a nine-acre industrial site on the Elliott Bay, into a free public park. The venue showcases outdoor sculptures set within several varied landscapes of Northwestern ecology and native plants. A pavilion at the park’s main entrance houses a public event space, cafe and amphitheater. Pentagram’s signage for the park incorporates directional and donor signage into the pathways and railings of the sculpture park, integrating the graphics into the natural surroundings.