Vatican Museums
An experience that comes alive
The Vatican Museums house the immense and diverse artistic heritage accumulated by the popes over the centuries. From stamps to carriages, from antiquities of every origin to wonders from every era, the Museums are a labyrinth of art, beauty, and faith that together tell the story of humanity in all its forms. The marvel and renown of what is displayed in the galleries—culminating in the Sistine Chapel—make the Museums one of the most important, visited, and beloved exhibition spaces in the world.
Brand design. Organizing plurality
The name says it all: behind the Vatican Museums lies a plurality of museums. Inarea supported the Institution with the aim of overcoming the layers and shortcomings that had built up over time, which were preventing the museums from being fully accessible and usable.
The rethinking of the Vatican Museums’ identity centers conceptually and organizationally on the redesign of the website: not just a site, but a major relational project capable of fostering openness and storytelling for all audience categories, through a simple and effective representational approach.
The portal’s design is streamlined by the introduction of a new visual identity, inspired by the features of the entrance portal to the Museums: the typeface reflects the classical form of Felice Feliciano’s Capitalis Monumentalis, which stands above the entrance. This choice allows for a dual reading of the sequence “MV,” which can be interpreted either as the acronym for Musei Vaticani or as the beginning of the word “Musei.”
Communication and digital design. The core of the identity intervention
The monumental work involved the development of around 13,000 pages in five languages (Italian, English, French, German, and Spanish), the publication of 4,000 artworks—from the Sistine Chapel to ancient Roman artifacts—more than 600 content entries per language, as well as the structuring of pages related to virtual tours, multimedia content, news, and ticketing.
Inarea’s work has made an extremely vast heritage accessible to all. The visit begins with its organization through the portal and creates an experience that allows visitors to feel inside the Vatican Museums even before physically entering them.
