Museum of SexSex Life

Destigmatizing sexuality to expand our understanding of the world

The Museum of Sex welcomes people from every culture who seek a deeper understanding of sexuality. A bold and brazen identity helps the museum to explore the frontier of the sexual landscape through the creation, curation, and presentation of ideas and experiences, not to mention campaigns that turn heads and start conversations across NYC.
Even in the 21st century, the word “sex” and references to sexual content still carry stigma. So when tasked with branding a museum previously known as MoSEX, the challenge was to deemphasize the negative connotations associated with the subject, while not shying away from all of its wild and wonderful facets, all while encouraging public enlightenment, discourse, and engagement.
Repositioned as The Museum of Sex, the New York City institution then needed a personality and visual identity that represented the importance its exhibitions, publications and programs – which bring the best of current scholarship on sex and sexuality to the widest possible audience.
Balancing the need to build an institutional brand with communicating the depth and variety of the programming was a core concern. The museum had to embrace its position as a creative breeding ground – diverse, always exploring, pushing, and changing – while remaining clearly recognizable through an iconic and consistent communication system.
Our solution was radically simple. By using the institution’s name as a container, sandwiching visuals between the lines of bold text, we were able to create a powerful dialogue between type and any image. This led to the reimagining of the advertising program, using this system not only to announce happenings at the museum, but examine and critique the cultural, social, political and economic issues that affect us all through the context of sex.
The Museum of Sex also engages in an array of projects with and beyond the walls of the institution. These include touring sexual carnivals, custom sexual personality tests, art commission programs, and product development to name but a few. Given this broad and diverse output, flexibility of the identity across a range of applications from products to advertising was critical.
On billboards, buses or the subway, the museum’s brazen posters immediately draw the eye – first to the large, loud type; then to the evocative, imaginative, suggestive visuals it frames. The identity demands attention, and starts conversations around “sex” and how the subject is viewed by society.

The Museum of Sex welcomes people from every culture who seek a deeper understanding of sexuality. A bold and brazen identity helps the museum to explore the frontier of the sexual landscape through the creation, curation, and presentation of ideas and experiences, not to mention campaigns that turn heads and start conversations across NYC.

Even in the 21st century, the word “sex” and references to sexual content still carry stigma. So when tasked with branding a museum previously known as MoSEX, the challenge was to deemphasize the negative connotations associated with the subject, while not shying away from all of its wild and wonderful facets, all while encouraging public enlightenment, discourse, and engagement.

Repositioned as The Museum of Sex, the New York City institution then needed a personality and visual identity that represented the importance its exhibitions, publications and programs – which bring the best of current scholarship on sex and sexuality to the widest possible audience.

Balancing the need to build an institutional brand with communicating the depth and variety of the programming was a core concern. The museum had to embrace its position as a creative breeding ground – diverse, always exploring, pushing, and changing – while remaining clearly recognizable through an iconic and consistent communication system.

Our solution was radically simple. By using the institution’s name as a container, sandwiching visuals between the lines of bold text, we were able to create a powerful dialogue between type and any image. This led to the reimagining of the advertising program, using this system not only to announce happenings at the museum, but examine and critique the cultural, social, political and economic issues that affect us all through the context of sex.

The Museum of Sex also engages in an array of projects with and beyond the walls of the institution. These include touring sexual carnivals, custom sexual personality tests, art commission programs, and product development to name but a few. Given this broad and diverse output, flexibility of the identity across a range of applications from products to advertising was critical.

On billboards, buses or the subway, the museum’s brazen posters immediately draw the eye – first to the large, loud type; then to the evocative, imaginative, suggestive visuals it frames. The identity demands attention, and starts conversations around “sex” and how the subject is viewed by society.