Bringing together more than 700 objects from his personal archive and spanning over three decades of filmmaking, the Design Museum in London is hosting the first major retrospective of Wes Anderson’s work ever staged in the UK. Anderson is known for his creative approach using handmade sets, stop-motion animation and miniatures, and even in live-action films model trains, ships and buildings appear, giving his immaculately constructed worlds a storybook feel.

Designed by Ab Rogers Design in collaboration with Pentagram, the exhibition is an expanded version of a previous show at La Cinémathèque française in Paris. It highlights Wes’ obsessive passion for design throughout each aspect of every film—from typography and colour to composition and object-making—all in shaping Anderson’s instantly recognisable visual language. The exhibition traces Anderson’s career from his early works to more recent releases and features everything from original storyboards, handwritten notebooks, polaroids, sketches, costumes, props, puppets and meticulously crafted miniatures. Finished props and sets are displayed alongside work-in-progress material and maquettes, exploring the variety of traditional and handmade filmmaking techniques that the director celebrates in his work.

Highlights include a candy-pink model of the Grand Budapest Hotel, the vending machines from Asteroid City, the FENDI fur coat worn by Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums, the original stop motion puppets used to depict the fantastical sea creatures in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Mr Fox wearing his signature corduroy suit, and show dog Nutmeg.

Pentagram was asked by the Design Museum to create the exhibition graphic design and marketing campaign. The graphics for the exhibition title are inspired by the hand crafted stencil typography that appears on shipping crates, echoing Wes Anderson’s creative and idiosyncratic approach.

The motion design and audio is inspired by the form and sounds of a manual typewriter, an object which often appears in Anderson’s films. The image of Edward Norton working on an Olivetti typewriter in Asteroid City was used as the key campaign image.

The campaign needed to cut through the noise in a busy period and appeal to visitors of all ages, and it was important that it avoided pastiche and wasn’t either a tribute to Wes Anderson or too gimmicky. This was achieved by focusing on a series of intriguing images featuring objects from the exhibition, giving the feeling of exploring Wes Anderson’s extensive archive.

The critically-acclaimed exhibition has proved extremely popular and has been extended beyond its original run. Alongside Ferrari: Under the Skin and Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, Wes Anderson: The Archives is one of the Museum's top three most-attended shows, all of which have all been designed by Pentagram.