METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART’S NEW LOGO REVEALED

The Metropolitan Museum of Art allegedly has a new logo: two short words—“THE MET”—in red lettering. According to Justin Davidson for New York Magazine, who obtained an early look at the logo, the branding firm Wolff Olins is responsible for the new designs that will take the place of the museum’s old capital M, which made its debut in 1971.

The logo, along with new maps and signs, is part of a campaign to make the Met “feel more available and accessible to first-time as well as frequent visitors,” according to a museum spokesperson. The new designs also coincide with the Met’s expansion into Met Breuer, the Upper East Side building previously occupied by the Whitney Museum.

Davidson notes that Wolff Olins was responsible for the visual identity of Tate Liverpool, Tate St. Ives, Tate Modern, and Tate Britain in the 1990s. The Met’s new logo has already received harsh criticism, even while it hasn’t yet officially been unveiled: Davidson himself calls it a “typographic bus crash,” and one Twitter user, responding to his article, deemed it “abominable.”