Museums Federation Cymru, Brand Identity
Identity · Typography
Brand identity design for the Museums Federation Cymru / Ffederaswn Amgueddfeydd Cymru. Our work for The Federation included brand identity design, website design and a bespoke typeface specifically designed to support the Welsh Language — sadly otherwise unavailable in commercially-available typefaces.
Museums Federation Cymru is the strategic body for museums and art galleries in Wales. The charity supports and advocate for the highest standards of museum provision throughout Wales, for the people of Wales.
Modern digital fonts do not properly support the Welsh language like they do for other languages. The digraphs — conjoined letterforms distinct to Welsh, the Dd, Ll, Rh etc — which in, say, Nordic languages would be joined (Æ) aren’t possible with commercial fonts for Welsh.
This is a centuries-old hangover of the Acts of the Union, letterpress printing dominated by English character sets, and the infamous ‘Welsh Not’ movement in schools. But In looking to create a proper bi-lingual brand for The Federation, we didn’t feel we could do this without a typeface that had proper Welsh language support
So we set out to make one.
Turnkey Welsh represents a bespoke adaptation of Turnkey, a font by typographer and friend of the studio Adam Greasley, adapted for full Welsh Language support.
The identity design looked to evolve from the brand’s previous generic museum/pillar icon into something more accessible that read better when small and online, whilst injecting meaning to the icon with a link to the Federation’s name — with the columns formed from the Ff of ‘Ffederaswn’ (Federation).
The work included the website design for a new bilingual website for the brand, showcasing the diverse and vibrant work of the Federation and its members.
The brand also includes a full set of icons, designed to help support meaning across the bilingual site for developing Welsh speakers as well as those with accessibility needs.
The icons are used throughout the website, as well as on slide decks and educational and promotional material and helping bring interest and understanding where photography isn’t appropriate/available.