National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium + Dubuque Historical Society

Helping an internal marketing team develop a brand identity and standards that supports their goals and vision

This was a massive brand identity redesign project! The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium already had a logo design, but the design of their marketing materials was inconsistent – not much had a cohesive look that their audience could connect with as their own. With much client discussion and research, I worked to establish a consistent color palette, fonts, and a variety of patterns and textures for the museum (and for its sister organizations as well!) It was all brought to life for the first time in a printed brochure I had designed for potential donors.

Now their new brand identity system is being used to keep a visual consistency throughout their social media, website, print and advertising – and making the efforts of their internal marketing team more efficient. When you visit the river museum now, you can see how their team has taken the brand identity plan and run with it — everything from signage to social media, print advertising to campus map has taken on the new visual brand. There's a renewed energy at the museum and definitely some staff excitement – that’s a great feeling! Love supporting our city and its area organizations and businesses.

visit their website

Having a booklet of brand standards guidelines and a system of organized brand identity files was very important to the River Museum to ensure their staff and vendors always kept their materials on-brand. I developed a brand standards manual that they could have digitally and printed to keep them on-track.

The process started with lots of discussion with River Museum and Historical Society staff to ensure the look and feel of this overall brand identity could be cohesive, yet different among the separate sister organizations. I worked to select consistent brand fonts, colors, and brand identity standards that the team could use as a guide for future in-house marketing projects. The collateral examples you see here are pieces I created to help get them started.

Luckythirteen Design is skilled in creativity and strategy. Nothing beats strategic, meaningful, and beautiful design!

Wendy Scardino
Director of Marketing and Communication, National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium