Stan Hema rebrands Stadtmuseum Berlin as the Berlin Museum, with a wordmark built from the city itself

Imagine sitting on a collection of 4.5 million objects and discovering that most people in your own city can't tell you where you are. That was more or less the problem for Stadtmuseum Berlin, whose blunt feedback from locals – "Stadtmuseum Berlin? Where is that?" – became the starting point for a full rebrand by Berlin studio Stan Hema.

The biggest change is the name itself. Stadtmuseum Berlin and its various locations (including the Märkisches Museum and the Nikolaikirche) have adopted a single name: the Berlin Museum. "Berlin comes first for us, and our name reflects that now," explains Sophie Plagemann, artistic director. It's a deliberate move to nudge the institution away from the image of a "dusty history museum" toward a place for everyone.

This approach started with the public. Rather than retreat into a boardroom, the museum ran an open call inviting Berliners to pick apart how the brand was seen. What came back shaped the rest: Berlin, in all its overlapping, contradictory, never-quite-aligned glory, sits at the centre of the new identity. "Berlin challenges and fascinates. The Berlin Museum should feel like Berlin itself. Direct, a bit stubborn, and always open to people and new perspectives," says Lisa Geisler, brand strategist at Stan Hema.

I've had the pleasure of visiting Berlin. It's a fascinating city that refuses to sit still. I think I came home and described it as "slightly unhinged in the best possible way". And anyone who's been will probably agree. There's nowhere like it on Earth. In which case, what do you do with it? Well, in this case, you stop trying to force it into one tidy logo. Because it just wouldn't be Berlin. So instead of a single fixed mark, the Berlin Museum gets a flexible wordmark where typefaces shift and combine. And the brilliant twist is that those typefaces come straight off the street.

"For us, the wordmark is the identity-defining element of the museum. It is directly connected to the reality of our city," explains André van Rueth, designer and typographer at Stan Hema. "To achieve this, we gathered typography from everyday Berlin: from U-Bahn stations and iconic buildings to the local currywurst stand. From this mix, we created a logotype system that brings different Berlin typefaces and perspectives into dialogue."

The result, seen across a run of posters for the museum's sites, is a 'Berlin Museum' lockup where the letters never quite match, set in bold coral, lime and sky blue and punctuated by a little arrow made of tiny crosses. It shouldn't hold together, and yet it does – which strengthens my earlier point, given the city it's named after.

For a traditional institution, it's a genuinely brave move, and one built on dialogue rather than top-down decree. "The new Berlin Museum brand is a warm invitation to everyone who lives in and visits Berlin," says Mathias Illgen, managing director at Stan Hema. "And if the new brand translates the warmth, intelligence, and passion of the people working in this 'house', then we have achieved a great deal."

The Stan Hema team on the project included Lisa Geisler, Mathias Illgen, André van Rueth and Daniela Vogel, working for client Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin across brand strategy, architecture, narrative, design and the launch campaign. The name is out there, right now, with a city-wide campaign rolling out from this autumn.

Sitting back and looking at all this, I think it's a good reminder that the best way to represent a place isn't to smooth it all out (or pretend to be something it isn't), but to let its many voices (including the currywurst stand) be heard.