Press Release 30-03-26

8 institutes, 5 research stations, 3 natural history museums, 1 mission: research on nature for the future. Anyone who wants to protect biodiversity and the climate must understand how they interact with humans. The Senckenberg Society for Nature Research has been fulfilling this mission for over 200 years—and is now doing so in a new visual guise.

“For us, excellent design is not an end in itself, but a bridge from research to the public,” emphasizes Prof. Dr. Klement Tockner, Director General of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research. “Science is our mission; our museums communicate, inspire, and connect. Senckenberg’s brand identity is a promise: it stands for independent research, a passion for nature, authenticity, curiosity, and sustainability.”

After around 15 years, it was time to modernize the visual identity. The focus was on sustainably strengthening the Senckenberg brand and ensuring digital flexibility. The aim was also to make the brand more visible, understandable, and emotionally engaging. A strong visual mark for cross-location brand positioning was desired, and the design concept also needed to work in multiple languages.

The owner-managed agency Studio Jens Mennicke was responsible for developing the new visual identity, including the logo, typography, color concept, imagery, and other brand assets. “In our collaboration with Art Director Jens Mennicke, we had a very intensive conceptual and creative dialogue and felt confident that he had comprehensively analyzed Senckenberg’s diversity—and at times complexity—and explored all possibilities,” Tockner continues.

How do you express the diversity of Senckenberg—its research, collections, and museums—in a single symbol? From insects to botany, from marine research to dinosaurs, from paleoanthropology to digital collectomics—the breadth of the organization across all its locations reflects its ambition to understand nature in all its facets, from the past into the future. To ensure it remains clearly recognizable as Senckenberg everywhere, Studio Jens Mennicke developed a true game changer: a new, dynamic visual mark, graphically inspired by an “S” for Senckenberg and an “N” for Nature, which captures the core of the brand and offers a broad platform for storytelling.

Another innovation is the abandonment of fixed brand colors. “Nature is so diverse and colorful that we wanted to reflect exactly that in the Senckenberg look,” explains Sabine Wilke, Head of Communications and Marketing at the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research. “Colors are defined conceptually or derived from the imagery—so every Senckenberg touchpoint appears in harmony with its content, carries emotional quality, and always feels contemporary.”

Since 2010, the claim “World of Biodiversity” had communicated the organization’s scientific ambition externally as part of the wordmark. The new brand architecture now makes it possible to clearly and concisely distinguish Senckenberg’s wide range of offerings. In the research context, the content, purpose, and mission of the institution are now unambiguously integrated into the wordmark: Senckenberg is Nature Research. For museum communication, major research programs, or dedicated media formats, the descriptor—the subline of the wordmark—can be adapted.

“The flexible design of the logo is a real breakthrough for us,” Wilke adds. “On an exhibition poster, we no longer have to explain at length which museum and location it refers to. And if a scientific project needs its own website, it can easily be built under the Senckenberg umbrella brand. We no longer dilute our identity with dozens of small design islands and project logos. Where it says Senckenberg, it contains Senckenberg.”

In addition to a new spectrum of colors and gradients, an adapted version of the extensively developed “Inter” typeface family is used as the working font, along with the serif display typeface “Romie” by Studio Margot Lévêque for all formats.

Following the development of the design in a compact, user-oriented process, all channels and touchpoints are being gradually updated. Since December 2025, the Senckenberg website has also appeared in the new look. “As a public institution with a limited marketing budget, it is important for us to implement as much as possible internally and proceed pragmatically,” Wilke explains.

“Our goal is for the new Senckenberg look to bring joy, spark curiosity, and motivate people to engage with science. At the same time, the corporate design is also an important part of our organizational culture,” concludes Director General Tockner. The internal response to the developed materials and the playful use of the visual mark already demonstrate the positive momentum that flexible design can generate.