Museum of medicine
Paul Stradins Museum of the History of Medicine · Visual identity · Personal project · Latvia · 2015
Paul Stradins Museum of the History of Medicine is one of the largest medical museums in the world. It is located in Riga, Latvia. The exposition presents the development of medicine and pharmacology from ancient times. The museum is open to visitors from 1961. The base collection is a gift from professor Pauls Stradiņš.
At the time of working on the project the museum had a very outdated visual identity. I started my work with a deep research on the museum’s history and current exposition, as well as gathered and analysed all the visual communication – both printed and digital. As the museum holds many historic exposition pieces I didn’t want the new identity to come in conflict with that. So I selected a few visual elements to create the link between the old and the new. I chose to mix a typewriter type of font with some modern and bold typography, as well as used vintage photography pieces from the museum’s collection. The colour palette was inspired by old glass medicine bottles. In museum archives I found an old museum stamp that I slightly simplified and brought back into use. The brand visual identity toolkit was organised in an overview document.
For the project I created a ticket and tri-fold brochure layout, made a proposal for the orientation sign system and museum display labels. The brochure and ticket can become elements of a game. The ticket is set up as a doctor’s ID card and can be pinned to a shirt. Meanwhile the brochure can be used as a patient file. Both items have customization areas to fill-in with some private data to start the game. The brochure has a photo attached to it – a small souvenir from the museum. The pinned pictures are of moments from the history of medicine in Latvia.
This was a personal study project and was never shared with any of to the museum representatives.
Tutor: M. Rozenfelde
