Ukrainian Central Naval Museum identity

Brain Tank created the identity for the Ukrainian Central Naval Museum, which has been retrieving and preserving treasures from the Black Sea for 20 years. The challenge was to convey that most of the museum’s exhibits lie at the bottom of the sea and can’t be easily seen.

The museum is unique in that most of its exhibits are located at the bottom of the Black Sea and are not visible. Our task was to cleverly incorporate this into the identity, making it clear and visually appealing.

In the process of working on the creative idea, we found an allegory: the water’s surface represents the informational barrier between the maritime artifact and the museum visitor, who potentially can see this artifact. We used a technical technique – blur which parallels this allegory, and we made it a key feature of the identity: showing how these objects look underwater, encouraging people to come to the museum and see them in person.

For the logo, a simple solution was found. The God of the Waters is associated with the famous trident of Poseidon. Primarily, it visually resonates with the state symbol of Ukraine – the Trident. Since this is a museum about the sea, an anchor is indispensable. So, we combined these three symbols to create a recognizable logo for the Ukrainian maritime museum.

The Ukrainian Central Naval Museum is officially located in Crimea, but due to the annexation of the peninsula, the administration and scientific staff of the museum currently operate in Kyiv, on the territory of the National Military Historical Museum.