Pre-Columbian Gold Museum
Álvaro Vargas Echeverría
- Redesign Project
- Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign
- San José, Costa Rica
The Pre-Columbian Gold Museum possesses an extraordinary archaeological collection and it is located within one of the most iconic buildings in Costa Rica – it is a subterranean building below Plaza de la Cultura. I redesigned their brand and part of its website (homepage and about) to improve the user experience.
Designing the Brand
After doing some research into the museum, I decided to include three key aspects in the rebrand process:
- The equilateral triangle is the basic unit of the museum design. A design grid is formed, present both in the floors and the ceilings.
- Throughout the museum thematic units, the public witnesses a journey between the past and the present, and how these two have an impact on the future of Costa Rica.
- Gold plays a prominent role within the museum: the most iconic archaeological pieces are made of gold, and the name of the museum includes the word gold.
With these 3 key aspects, I sketched an idea for the logo, concentrating on the equilateral triangle and using a gold color palette. I wanted to create a symbol that represented the museum, and how the past, present, and future are interconnected in Costa Rican history. I kept the logo design as simple as possible and paired the symbol with Condor typography as seen below. At this point, I also chose Serenity typography for the rest of the texts.
Website Redesign
Designing for digital illuminates new possibilities through the confluence of human interaction and pixels. I took the liberty to curate the user’s experience rather than conforming to preconceived UX/UI norms.
Homepage
The entire homepage was modified to allow the public a better user experience.
The header displays buttons to the Online Store, the Ticket Store, and a Search icon to give users easy access to key services of the museum. It also shows a simpler navigation menu that highlights the most important sections and services of the museum.
The body highlights each of the main sections found on the navigation menu. This allows the users to read a little bit of each section and find what they are looking for.
The footer was completely improved. It features a social media menu, contact information for the public, and more ways to connect to the museum (jobs, facilities, vendors, etc.).
About
On this web page the user can find the purpose of the museum, its mission and vision, and learn about its history.
The previous version was heavy on text and difficult to navigate. To fix these issues, a timeline, a banner, and an image gallery were added to visually improve the user experience of the user.
Another change that was performed was to add a link on the navigation menu for easy access. In the past, the only way to find it was on the footer of the website.
The new header and footer were included to take the visuals to the next level.
Business Stationary
Stationery has been an important part of social etiquette since the Victorian era. For this project, I designed a double-sided business card, letterhead, and envelope. Each of these components supports the impression of a unified visual identity.
