The National Ballet of Canada unveils ‘inviting’ rebrand

Marking the brand’s first redesign in almost two decades, the project saw Bruce Mau Design craft a new identity to reposition the organisation as creative, inclusive and bold. The Toronto-based design agency adopted a classical and modern hybrid design aesthetic when altering the brand’s wordmark, icon, typeface and colour palette.

In a bid to dispense with perceptions of ballet being highbrow or elitist, The National Ballet of Canada and Bruce Mau Design opted to embrace a flexible and welcoming identity. Crafted in partnership with Displaay Type Foundry, a revised lowercase wordmark allows designers to add copy onto it, thereby allowing a strong narrative to be infused.

Bruce Mau Design’s chief creative officer, Laura Stein, explains, “Our Storyteller concept helps address ‘the uncertainty gap’ – where people are less likely to engage in something if they don’t understand it.

“The wordmark’s narrative can tease some of the story so that people who know nothing about a ballet such as Onegin understand that it deals with exciting and dramatic themes such as love and betrayal.”

In addition to the new wordmark and typeface, the design agency also incorporated a jewel-toned colour palette to combat the old brand’s dark pink, which may have been considered gendered. Instead, the updated brand introduces a vibrant green, bright orange and intense blue.

“Ballet is often seen as inaccessible, something only for the wealthy, and this is a barrier to newer and often younger audiences,” says Kar Yan Cheung, director of design strategy at Bruce Mau Design. “The idea was to pull back the curtain and bring people up close to what is happening at The National Ballet of Canada, which is already known for its excellence, but we wanted to signal being more innovative and a bold leader for the ballet world.”