Each year, ICOM creates an International Museum Day poster, as well as a postcard and web banner, linked to the theme of the year, enabling participating museums to illustrate the theme and to attract visitors with an appealing design.
For the 2019 poster, we wanted to emphasize the first part of the theme: “museums as cultural hubs”. This was a big challenge because it is about representing the museum as a hub in relation with the local communities. So we chose sign everyone knows as the localization sign. We transformed it into an entity gathering other entities and we used it to create a mesh for the background. This repeating sign also evokes the concept of polycentricity. It highlights the new role of museums as a platform and the link between museums and the future while respecting traditions.
As it is the theme of the Kyoto General Conference, the colors have been chosen to recall Japan and the pattern is close to Japanese indigo textile. Finally, this pattern is the visual echoes of previous International Museum Day, it quickly identifies the event.
If you wish to use the poster in a language that is not available, do not hesitate to contact your ICOM National Committee or the translation form.
