The Harvard Museum of Natural History strives to enhance public understanding of the natural world and human place in it., sparking curiosity and a spirit of discovery in people of all ages. The image below portrays the museum's website homepage and depicts their brand identity.

When I was brainstorming and sketching concepts I investigated ideas that revolved around nature. It was challenging to find a way to represent a broad subject such as natural history in a symbol or icon. I explored different kinds of typographical and pictorial marks.

I approached the logo design in an illustrative manner because I was looking to include an organic element to a museum brand about nature, rather than having it strictly geometric or overly simplistic. I narrowed my choices between the two iterations depicted above.

I ended up going with the deer illustration, as the other choice of the skeleton illustration could possibly mistake the museum for one that's about dinosaurs or fossils. I felt the logo was an elegant balance between a clean simple modern aesthetic and an expressive organic illustration. The logo would change color depending on how dark or light its background is.

I wanted to give the museum homepage a clean and elegant look. I was looking to heavily incorporate photography to help bring out personality to the brand image and layout the content in simple organized grids.