The City of York certainly had something new to shout about as we made our way from the station into the City yesterday afternoon, passing by the lamppost banners and posters highlighting the new attraction in town. After lots of anticipation the re-furbished Yorkshire Museum has re-opened its doors.

Being ‘greeted’ by the Mars statue as we walked through the entrance to the Museum was great; a familiar sight from the marketing literature we had produced for the museum. The transformation was instantly recognisable – the space was light and airy with sights and sounds enticing you in every direction.

We started our visit with the audio visual spectacular we had heard so much about. A journey back in time through the sights and sounds of York, taking place in the old cinema which is part of the museum. It was hard to believe that such an amazing space had been there all the time in the museum, but closed off to the public. This ornate auditorium will make a great addition to the museum experience.

Leaving the auditorium, we made our way through the different galleries starting with a visit to Roman York. The highlight for me was the large floor mosaic, which was found in York and has been lovingly re-laid within the museum. They even encourage you to walk on it; a sure sign that the museum experience is changing. If you like you can even adorn the roman costumes, including sandals to enhance your experience – they do come in adult sizes!

Walking into the Medieval York Gallery set amongst the ruins of a medieval abbey, we were instantly attracted to the treasure on display. Spectacular pieces of Viking and Medieval gold and silver, well presented against a purple backdrop which makes the displays jump out at you. Again great to see pieces which we used in our marketing, such as the Middleham Jewel in reality; such a beautiful gold pendant with a sapphire and intricate engravings to both sides.

Heading back upstairs we entered the Extinct Gallery; a fun, family-orientated gallery where you can walk in the footprints of dinosaurs, see which dinosaur weighs the same as you and see if you are as tall as a Moa (a flightless bird from New Zealand) - as they were 2m tall I stood no chance! Again the displays were really bright and interactive, with extra information sheets on hand if you wanted to find out more.

Overall it was a great experience and is amazing to see the transformation into a modern, bright and spacious museum; well done York Museums Trust for making the vision a reality.

Sumo worked with York Museums Trust to promote the relaunch of the Yorkshire Museum, as part of our ongoing role as their creative agency.

MuseumNext is an annual conference about how museums and galleries can benefit from new technology and the latest web trends. The event which was organised and chaired by Sumo’s Managing Director Jim Richardson, brought together experts from leading museums and galleries in Europe and the United States.

We are passionate about both culture and technology at Sumo, and MuseumNext was a great opportunity to share this with museums and galleries from around the world.

This should have been posted much earlier, but with an array of pitches and tons of other work, there just hasn’t been the time! Saying that, you could say that this whole project has been in the making for thousands of years so another few days to announce the (re)launch of Creswell Crags on our blog wasn’t going to affect things too much.

Sumo were brought in to produce the new brand identity for Creswell Crags last year and 26th June saw the culmination of all our efforts, having been invited down to the official launch event, a packed day consisting of speeches, tours, food, good weather and David Bellamy!

Actually, watching Bellamy deliver his dynamic speech against the backdrop of the new Creswell Crags building, with the logo above his head, really summed up the brand for me: ‘Inspiring People for 50,000 Years’ — not that I’m in any way suggesting that the lively bearded botanist is that ancient!

What struck me overall throughout the day though was the way the organisation has really embraced the brand — they wanted us to deliver a brand and guidelines which would let them venture off and produce their own materials, confident that everything would be up to scratch, and everything was. It’s great to see that they care just as much as we do about the execution and use of their brand — hopefully a testament to all our hard work during the workshops and the guidelines we produced!

After listening to all the speeches and taking in the new building and what it has to offer, I’m sure there are many more years of inspiring people to be had at Creswell Crags.

We spent last week in Sussex running brand workshops with Colchester & Ipswich Museums, a service which we are currently rebranding.

The Ipswich Museum was our home for one day of workshops and we got the chance to explore the Victorian natural history displays before the doors were open. This gave us a real ‘Night at the Museum’ experience as we came face to face with the animals who have probably called the building home since it opened over 130 years ago.

It is a wonderful collection, and I am glad that we’ll be playing our part in it’s history. You can see more pictures from our visit to Ipswich Museum on Flickr.