Serpentine Galleries

Pentagram created a new identity to express the galleries' spirit of openness.

The logo acts as an aperture, opening for different content and different ideas in an ever-changing way. It also acts as a bridge, echoing the actual bridge over the Serpentine that links the two Galleries in Hyde Park.

The Serpentine Galleries re-launched in September 2013 with a new brand identity created by Pentagram in collaboration with Brian Boylan.

Brian Boylan developed the strategy to create a united brand for The Galleries, positioning Serpentine as an open landscape for arts and culture. The Galleries invite artists and audiences to explore, opening the idea of art and the many experiences it promotes.

Building on Boylan's strategy, Pentagram created a new identity to express this spirit of openness. The logo acts as an aperture, opening for different content and different ideas in an ever-changing way. It also acts as a bridge, echoing the actual bridge over the Serpentine that links the two Galleries in Hyde Park.

The logo’s typeface was specially designed by Pentagram. With a combination of sharp and rounded corners, it is both challenging and approachable; thought-provoking, but also conveying Serpentine's democratic spirit.

For the overall identity, a new typeface was designed by Patrick Giasson, creating a distinctive new voice for Serpentine. The sharp and modern typography, with its distinctive geometry and proportions, is a derivation from the logo but also complementary to it.

The team created the graphic language, imagery, colour palette and all other brand elements. Pentagram created the signage system for the Galleries both externally and internally as well as designing the identity for "The Magazine" restaurant designed by Dame Zaha Hadid. The identity is separate from Serpentine's but connected to it.

The new brand is an important step for the Serpentine Galleries, helping them to reaffirm their position as one of the most significant platforms for arts and culture in the world today.

Client

Serpentine Galleries

Sector

Arts & Culture

Discipline

Brand Identity

Office

London

Partners

Marina Willer
Daniel Weil

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Retrospective: Shakespeare in the Park

In 1954, impresario Joe Papp began a summer tradition of staging free outdoor performances of Shakespeare, inaugurating the Public Theater’s beloved Shakespeare in the Park festival. Pentagram partner Paula Scher, whose relationship with the Public spans four decades, has designed a new identity for the series for thirty consecutive summers. Each campaign is customized to the season’s theme, creating a highly visible graphic vocabulary for outdoor advertising, social media, and on-site signage.

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2025