Bloomberg Connects

The Arts and culture app.

Bloomberg Connects is an arts and culture app created by Bloomberg Philanthropies to make art more accessible to more people. It is home to interactive guides to more than 60 museums, sculpture parks, gardens, cultural spaces, and more around the world. The app makes it easy to access and connect with arts and culture from your mobile device anytime, anywhere.

A new brand.

The Challenge

The existing brand that was developed was practical, simple, and corporate. It did its job for some time but after a year of use was already showing its constraints and couldn’t do the job it set out to do. With over 100 museums set to join the app in the coming months, social channels being developed, and campaigns being planned, we needed to rethink what was originally developed.

The Solution

The brand had the opportunity to be dynamic and appeal to an even broader audience of art lovers. With that in mind we set out to do just that. By refining the existing brand elements, adding vibrant colors, expanding our photography library, and creating new visual motifs, we were able to make something exciting and fresh.

The Logo

With a brand already established, we were tasked with refreshing what was already there. With that in mind, we wanted to address a few things: legibility at small scale, a more intentional shape to the magnifying glass, and thoughtful use of the negative space.

Solid Color Palette

Gradient Color Palette

Photo Library

We conducted 7 photoshoots at various museums and cultural spaces throughout New York City over the course of a few months. We used this as an opportunity to capture the app itself, the wide array of people that use it, and the variety of art spaces we have available. These are being used in campaigns, pitch materials, social posts, and more.

art outside the box.

We create campaigns, print materials, signage, and more for each museum we work with. This requires us to be flexible and often share our design voice with a variety of museums. This is why we created a system that could use a variety of design treatments with room for experimentation.

The app off the Screen

This design treatment brings the app to life by pulling UX inspired elements off the screen and into the world. This allows us to showcase features of the app without words.

Art in the Third dimension

This design treatment was created to showcase the art itself. By bring the art outside of the phone space it takes on a new life bringing dynamism to the design.

Keep it simple

This design treatment simplifies the approach by removing the phone completely and simply alluding to it with the shape. This gives the design a contemporary unfussy aesthetic.

Museums and more.

With each museum and cultural space launched in the app we often create signage, printed materials, lookup signage, social posts, and even swag. These often break the rules and allow a share of the partners brand voice and a share of ours to make something unique.

Social Media

Late 2021 we launched our social channels and are building our audience. We are using the channels as a way to boost content from the app, gain downloads, share exhibitions our partners are launching, and to build brand recognition outside of museums.

We designed a system that is vibrant and doesn’t distract from the photography and video content we are featuring.