Cultural icon in transition
Challenge
How do you maintain a clear identity as a Dutch cultural institution when your program is so diverse? With 600 concerts, 300 club nights, films, festivals and exhibitions each year, the range – and target audiences – seems endless. Yet over the past decade, this Amsterdam cultural icon, emerged from the squatting movement, has successfully claimed a distinct position as the most inclusive pop venue in the Netherlands – a safe haven where young people can explore and discover their identity.
Result
After more than a decade of collaboration with Norday, the new positioning is firmly embedded in everything the Melkweg does. As a place where urban, queer, pop and underground culture come together, the venue welcomes both emerging talent and established names. This vision has been integrated into every aspect of the organisation: from a refreshed visual identity and logo to a clear manifesto and code of conduct for employees. The customer journey has been optimised with thoughtful signage, narrowcasting and the website. By engaging different target groups through dedicated social media channels, newsletters and personalised web pages, the Melkweg reaches exactly the right visitors with the right content.
What we did
Visual identity, website, positioning, manifesto, code of conduct, routing/signing
Impact
A stage for everyone
Melkweg is very vocal about its mission to contribute to a creative and inclusive city. A sanctuary where you can be yourself, open and accessible. Such a message should not go unnoticed. While many venues allow their programme to take centre stage – filling their websites with images of shows – Melkweg takes a different approach. This open and accessible story has been brought to life on their new website, with branding that radiates creativity and inclusivity and a platform designed to discover new things.
A striking and flexible visual language
Creative, open, accessible, raw and infused with a do-it-yourself mentality. That’s Melkweg. And that’s exactly what the branding needed to convey. To achieve this, we revamped the visual identity in 2016 (in collaboration with Bas Koopmans). The concept is simple: using the core letters of MELKWEG, a custom font was developed. The E rotates into an M and the M flips further into a W. The letters form square blocks, allowing every word to become a recognisable logo. Anything written in this font is instantly identifiable as Melkweg. It also integrates seamlessly with the artwork provided by acts for their visuals.
Video loops for discovery
As a pioneer in creativity and diversity, Melkweg strives to inspire visitors to explore new things. Based on user testing and data, we know how to spark curiosity. That’s why we introduced loops – short video clips, similar to those you might recognise from Spotify – to ignite visitors’ interest in acts they may not yet know.
Broad programming, simply presented
Melkweg offers a wide range of pop culture, from music to visual arts and exhibitions. Creating an agenda for such diverse offerings is no simple task. Some events last for weeks or are part of a larger thematic line-up. Each type of programme has its own content and structure. We designed several smart content formats that are dynamically built from our design system.
Tech: flexibility, speed and emission reduction
The editorial team has endless freedom in designing pages. By combining smart content modules, infinite combinations can be made. Festivals, campaigns and themes can have their own landing pages.
We serve the website’s approximately 30,000 pages at lightning speed using a static site setup. This ensures that pages load instantly, which is crucial for conversions on mobile devices. Moreover, this technology is significantly more sustainable, as it reduces the server’s computational power requirements. This leads to a substantial decrease in energy consumption and, consequently, emissions. Curious about the technical details? We wrote a blog about it.
Manifesto: Everyone participates
An organisation can only transform successfully when all employees embrace the new direction. With this in mind, we created a practical brand guide containing the manifesto and behaviour guidelines for employees. These tools ensure that all 250 Melkweg employees, from box office to backstage, share the same story. New team members are immediately immersed in this culture through an engaging introductory video that clearly communicates Melkweg’s core values.
Ready to change things?
