Just as profit-oriented corporations need to present a carefully defined visual identity to their public, so must a nonprofit organization like the Walker Art Center. Even with limited resources, this museum uses graphic designers to present its best face to the public.

For twenty years the Walker Art Center presented itself in a quiet, restrained, and neutral manner. It was a model of contemporary corporate graphics. But times change, and like many American museums, the Walker is now taking another look at its role in society. The questions the Walker is considering include: What kind of museum is this? Who is its audience? How does the museum tell its story to its audience? What should its visual identity and publications look like? Identity builds expectation. Does the identity established by the museum's communications really support the programs the Walker offers?

The stock-in-trade of the Walker Art Center includes exhibitions and the performing arts for audiences ranging from children to scholars, educational programs, and avant-garde programming in film and video. As the museum's programming becomes even more varied, the old “corporate” identity represented by a clean, utilitarian design no longer seems appropriate. To better represent the expanded range of art and audience at the museum, The Design Studio, an internal laboratory for design experimentation at the Walker, is purposely blurring aspect of high and low culture and using more experimental typefaces and more eclectic communication approaches. Posters, catalogs, invitations to exhibitions, and mailers for film and performing art programs often have independent design and typographic approaches, while the calendar and members' magazine provide a continuity of design.

Publication design, symbol and identity systems, and type and image relationships are among the areas of expertise necessary for in-house museum designers.

I like the way words look, the way ideas can become things. I like the social, activist, practical, and aesthetic aspects of design. -Laurie Haycock Makela