Hopscotch:
A Brand to Launch a Museum
Hopscotch is a ‘uniquely curated interactive art experience’, a not-quite-a-museum of immersive digital art meant to encourage participants to be present and take part. It’s branding follows suit, and we created an interactive, scalable identity that will grow with Hopscotch as it evolves.
The project founders approached In-House while the immersive art space project was taking shape. They wanted to create a brand around how they wanted the experience to feel;: playful, unpretentious and an invitation to exploration. Our task: to give the project a name, a shape, a feeling and a brand-sensory vibe to frame this one-of-a-kind adventure.
Print & Editorial / Branding
Art that is fully immersive–that’s built to interact with its audience in the moment–has typically been pushed to the fringes of the art world, to the category of novelty or attraction. Something that goes alongside the actual art.
In that sense, Hopscotch is in a unique category: it focuses entirely on contemporary works conceived as fully immersive experiences. Hopscotch is a new permanent art destination for immersive installations; a 21-century un-museum. They envisioned an art institution that marries technology, fine arts, media arts, and design.
Founders Nicole Jensen, Hunter Inman and curator Lisa B. Woods approached us as this project, still untitled, was taking shape. The mission was clear to them, as was the feeling they wanted to evoke: playful, unpretentious and an invitation to exploration. Our task: to give the project a name, a shape, a feeling and a brand to frame this one-of-a-kind adventure.
We identified early on that the project needed a flexible visual identity that transformed the brand into a container of experiences and sights.
The name is playful and evocative, yet open enough to allow the name to carry (just like the logo) the visitor’s childhood memories — to be a name that prompts pleasurable memories instead of echoes of solemn art institutions.
We were partly inspired by the ‘hack/maker’ attitude digital artists we met seemed to have. Much of the work is built using standard components. Results are anything but standard.
The final brand system is enormously flexible and adaptable but it’s made up of relatively standard components. Flattened ‘boxes’ can be stacked and moved as needed, which keeps the brand dynamic–but also practical for different layouts and contexts.
The color system is similarly flexible: there are base colors, and accent colors. Base colors occupy most of the visual space of the logo (for example, the inside of the cubes), and accent colors are secondary to the them and can be more vibrant and stimulating. To ensure proper readability we defined 20+ specific color duos to launch the brand.
Finally, we selected a set of simple sans-serif fonts. They were selected for impact and readability as well as how they play with each other, providing a clear hierarchy of information through size and weight.
We landed on a visual system built on fluid frames: the logo’s volume is defined by isometric geometry, but one that when flattened and arranged, making it possible to add units as needed.
It’s a blooming, playful grid where the shapes not only support endless growth, but almost seem to suggest it.
The system does away with the rigid edges around each box and around the logo. This fluidity gives the standard “logo-as-container” concept a little something extra. Ultimately, it introduces a system clear enough to be immediately recognized as a framework to grow with, and flexible enough to contain everything imaginable. Its simple and direct: once you have seen the logo, the system falls logically into place.
As with any brand, consistent use is key to building recognition. Since the Hopscotch identity is built for flexible experimentation, we made special emphasis on the brand styleguide, clearly defining the hard and fast rules that must always be followed to keep the brand cohesive.
Hopscotch announced its first pop-up in early 2019.
