A white MODA card leans against a bright red background, listing the many audiences the Museum of Design Atlanta welcomes

MODA

Atlanta’s greatest fan of design.

Design is the practice of optimism. It’s the work of making things better for people. A museum devoted to it ought to feel that way too. Like the most welcoming room in the city.

A new executive director hellbent on connecting the museum with all Atlantans. MODA is the only museum in the Southeast devoted entirely to design.


Truth

Museums can be intimidating, especially design museums. People stop at the door and wonder: Do I know enough to be here? Is this for experts? Will I feel stupid? Expertise done wrong feels like a closed door.

MODA behaved like a reserved institution, not a living part of Atlanta’s arts and design culture. We worked with executive director Laura Flusche to change that. We repositioned the brand, shaped the new vision, and built a rambunctious identity that reflects their passion for design.

Moda 2
A MODA bus shelter poster features the museum’s vertical logo and bold red text inviting oddballs, designers, experts, and kids to join the Museum of Design Atlanta.
MODA program flyers show the museum’s vertical logo over workshop photos and include design program details
A MODA education poster displays close-up hands holding a MODA poster
The MODA storefront features large white window text reading “We want more design, Atlanta” beside red spinning chairs outside the museum.

Beauty

The move was a deliberate rejection of the obvious. A museum could position itself as the expert, the authority, the smartest one in the room. We went the other way.

We made MODA the greatest fan of design in Atlanta. The most enthusiastic, the most generous, the most delighted. It's a position that changes everything downstream. An expert makes you prove you belong. A fan just wants you to love what they love. A fan makes room.

Best of all, it gave MODA something to do: invite the rest of Atlanta to be fans too. From there we built a flexible identity that could celebrate design in all its forms and flex across wildly different subject matter without losing itself.

"An expert makes you prove you belong. A fan just wants you to love what they love."

A MODA brand identity slide displays the museum’s wordmark, signature red color, selected typefaces, and playful iconography.
Visitors gather around a table building with LEGO bricks inside MODA, with a large wall graphic behind them reading “We want more design, Atlanta.”

Impact

You can see the position at work in what MODA does today. One exhibition takes on the hoodie as a lightning rod for identity, power, and protest. Another is a family workshop for kids and their parents. Both belong under the same roof, because the museum isn't guarding its expertise. Instead, it's loving design out loud and wanting everyone in the room.

We gave Atlanta's design museum permission to be a fan first. Everything else followed.

Red MODA logo Museum of design atlanta logo in red

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