LAUSANNE.- The Musée de l’Elysée has adopted a new identity: Photo Elysée. The museum thus proclaims its graphic DNA and its position within Vaud, Switzerland and the international's cultural landscape. Rather than turning its back on its past, the museum reformulates it to look resolutely towards the challenges of a museum of the future. The new identity is intrinsically linked to the move to Plateforme 10, with its re-opening planned for June 2022. This complete makeover has also been materialised in a Scientific and Cultural Project defining the institution’s perspectives and development objectives for the years 2020 to 2025, as well as a vast Collections Project to grasp and understand the more than 1,200,000 phototypes that make up its collections.

TO SEE: INTERACTING WITH IMAGES

By highlighting the word “photo” whilst retaining “Elysée” in the logo, the institution’s primary mission – to promote photography in all its forms – is reinforced. A more condensed brand, Photo Elysée travels easily from a linguistic perspective and accompanies the exhibitions and the museum’s international renown. “It was crucial to create a timeless, international identity accessible to the general public whilst immediately signifying the specificity of the institution within Plateforme 10” explains Tatyana Franck, Director of the museum.

PHOTO ELYSÉE: EXTRAORDINARY VISUAL EXPERIENCES

This brand was devised in collaboration with Gilles Gavillet from the graphic design agency based in Geneva and Lausanne, Gavillet & Cie, and conveys the museum’s desire to offer extraordinary visual experiences and develop the public’s vision. The logo, in black and white, plays on semantics and graphics that can be interpreted and used in an infinite number of ways. It can be integrated transparently or in contrast on all communication media, digital or traditional, in a nod to the colour codes used in photography. “This transparency is interesting in terms of graphic reproduction; it’s about using the opportunity of ‘TO SEE’ to make it the core of the museum’s communications and to bring about a dynamic interaction between the contents and the public” adds Gilles Gavillet. Another key component of the identity is the typographical design, created by Swiss typographer François Rappo and tailored by Gavillet & Cie. Geometric, precise and finely wrought, it states loud and clear the museum’s qualities and unique character.

PHOTO ELYSÉE: AT PHOTOGRAPHY’S HEART

Photo Elysée is one of the world’s leading museums entirely devoted to photography, which it has shared with the widest possible public via exacting exhibitions, benchmark editorial content, innovative shows and events open to everyone. For 35 years, with both the multiplicity and the synergy of its projects, the museum has been examining the continual reinvention of the medium. Through the major figures that have marked its history, it explores new ways of seeing or being seen and promotes emerging photography that, with original perspectives, bears witness to today’s world and heralds tomorrow’s – in other words, covering every aspect of photography, sometimes discovering them and above all, making sure they are rediscovered.