Rufus Leonard develops Portrait Café identity

08 August 2005

The National Portrait Gallery is launching the new identity of its Portrait Café this month with the help of leading brand development agency Rufus Leonard.

The brand identities of the café and restaurant were updated in line with the recent refresh of National Portrait Gallery’s visual identity, previously undertaken by Rufus Leonard in 2004. The signage, crockery and ticketing were all redesigned to extend the word mark of the Gallery’s logo, yet both restaurant and café were given distinct atmospheres of their own.

Central to these changes, and again reflecting the Gallery’s overall brand identity, was the concept of a portrait of a nation. In the Portrait Restaurant vibrant colours and engaging oil portraits were used to bring this idea to life. The Portrait Café features black and white photography and a series of cheeky and very British images in keeping with the café’s original floor and wall colours, its organic “home-cooked menu” and its more informal feel. 

Andrew Fleming, Creative Director at Rufus Leonard said: “The result is a café identity that stands alone and has its own personality, yet is consistent with the identity of the National Portrait Gallery as a whole.”