The Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt am Main, now operating under the umbrella brand DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, has undergone a significant visual identity transformation. The museum, which opened in 1984, was merged with the Deutsches Filminstitut in 2006, but for years the combined institution lacked a unified public identity. That changed in 2019 with a comprehensive rebranding that introduced a new name, a new logo, and a new graphic concept.
Design and History
The Deutsches Filmmuseum opened in June 1984 as the first German museum devoted to the history of cinema. It was founded on the tradition of the Kommunales Kino, a municipal cinema previously housed in Frankfurt’s Historisches Museum. The museum’s founding director from 1979 to 2003 was Walter Schobert. The institution traces its roots further back to the Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde (DIF), founded in 1949, which was renamed Deutsches Filminstitut in 1998. The Deutsches Filminstitut and the Deutsches Filmmuseum formally merged in 2006, but the combined entity continued to use the outdated DIF acronym, causing confusion about its identity. [1] [2]
In 2019, the institution introduced a new corporate identity under the name DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum. The rebranding was designed by the Offenbach-based graphic design firm Urban Media Project. The new logo displays the letters DFF, broken through by the projection beam of a cinema. The design concept focuses on projection as a link between the analogue past and the digital present and future. The tagline “Everything is film” was derived from the institution’s mission statement and punctuates the brand. [3] [1] [2]
The rebranding was part of a broader repositioning initiated by director Ellen Harrington, who took office in 2018. A working group developed a new mission statement and tested 27 name variants before settling on the DFF acronym. The goal was to make the institution’s many activities, including its museum, cinema, archives, festivals, and digital platforms, recognizable as one unified whole. [3] [4]
Meaning and Symbolism
The DFF logo’s central motif is the cinema projection beam, which cuts through the three letters of the acronym. This imagery directly references the medium of film and the act of projection, which the design team identified as a bridge between the analogue past and the digital future of cinema. The black-and-white logo is described as developing from this characteristic light beam of film projection. [4] [1]
The visual identity is accompanied by a color concept using four leading colors: green, blue, yellow, and red. These colors run through the entire visual appearance of the institution, including its publications and program materials. The color spectrum is extended to twelve colors for twelve months in the cinema program booklet. [3]
Typography and Design
Urban Media Project’s design for the DFF is described as a clear, almost classical logo with a fresh, very offensive color concept. The design was intended to make the brand more recognizable and understandable at a glance. The logo’s construction, with the projection beam interrupting the letterforms, was developed to represent the house and all its departments and activities as one big whole. The design firm’s approach was praised for cleverly implementing the requirement to unify the institution’s diverse offerings under a single visual identity. [1] [2]
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