Tate Case Study

Ambition

In the 1990s, the Tate Gallery at Millbank had opened new sites in Liverpool and St. Ives and formed a breathtaking new ambition: to create a huge new modern art gallery at Bankside power station in London. Tate wanted to make all four sites into something new: not traditional institutions, but exciting destinations.

Action

With help from Wolff Olins, Tate reinvented the idea of a gallery from a single, institutional view, to a branded collection of experiences, sharing an attitude by offering many different ways of seeing. The new Tate would become a part of everyday national life, democratizing without dumbing down. Wolff Olins created the Tate brand under the idea "look again, think again": both an invitation and a challenge to visitors. Instead of the confusing "Millbank" and "Bankside," we named the London sites Tate Britain and Tate Modern to signal what kind of art people would find inside. We designed a range of logos that move in and out of focus, suggesting the dynamic nature of Tate - always changing but always recognizable. And we shaped Tate's visual style, influencing its posters, website, publications and shops. Seven years after the initial launch, we helped Tate refresh its vision for the decade ahead.

Impact

From the day it opened, Tate Modern was a huge success, attracting double its target visitor numbers, and becoming the most popular modern art gallery in the world. After a year, Tate's overall annual visitor numbers had risen 87% to 7.5 million. As the Observer wrote in 2005, Tate "has changed the way that Britain sees art, and the way the world sees Britain."

In 2012 Tate Modern broke records with 5.3 million annual visitors, a 9% increase, making it the busiest year in it's history.