D is for Design and Dots

Established in 2010, Design Museum Boston (DMB) is a nonprofit organization that "envisions creative, engaging public art and design education for Boston and New England." Without its own physical space DMB is a nomadic museum — or what they call a "decentralized network of physical and virtual exhibits" — bringing different programming and experiences to galleries, retail environments, and public spaces. Back in January — sorry, sometimes we are out of the loop on things — DMB introduced a new identity designed by Continuum and, to many people's amusement, the design process was thoroughly documented on Core77: Here is a list of posts from nine weeks worth of work and, a highlight from week 5, here are the design concepts shown.



The resulting dynamic mark is a true metaphor for community coming together to understand design.
— Continuum Case Study















The concept here is very straightforward. Actually it's a bunch of decent, but easy, concepts together: dots spread out to signal the nomadic nature of DMB; dots to represent how design is everything, and everything is design; dots as community; dots to show how design influences everything. Nothing groundbreaking, but it gets the point across. Same goes for the identity: It's far from groundbreaking — here is another 'D' made out of dots that spread in and out — but it's decently executed. The typography — I'm a sucker for Benton Sans — and the color palette are very nice, the applications are simple and bold, and the "D" icon has enough energy to become distinctive and recognizable. I also like that they didn't go with an artsy grungy theme to portray the idea of "design" but rather as a more controlled, grid-based "thing" that can burst out when needed.

Thanks to Brian Collins for the tip.