Cultural Institutions Need New Audiences. Design Can Help Them Find One.
Observer ·
As cultural institutions face attendance and funding pressures, reaching people beyond their existing audiences has become increasingly crucial. Thoughtful design, argues MiresBall’s John Ball, can help institutions make their programming more accessible, communicate what a visit offers and give newcomers a reason to return.
The Kennedy Center’s struggles, from departing donors to discussions of demolition, have reignited questions about the future of America’s cultural institutions. Beyond this highly political dispute lies a challenge facing many museums, theaters, festivals and other cultural organizations: how to attract people who don’t already consider themselves part of the audience.
The pressure is visible elsewhere. California’s Desert Symphony will not present a 2026–27 season , amid funding pressures and reports of declining ticket sales and an aging audience. Across museums, the American Alliance of Museums’ 2025 survey found that 55 percent of respondents reported fewer visitors than in 2019. In Canada, analytics agency TRG Arts reported gifts to the Canadian arts sector fell by 45 percent between 2019 and 2023.
As costs rise and traffic and donations dwindle, institutions cannot afford to assume that the quality of what happens inside will bring new people through the door. Existing visitors know what an institution offers them. Newcomers may encounter publicity that assumes they recognize the artist or understand their work. They may arrive without clear guidance on where to go and how to explore what’s on offer. More fundamentally, they may be asking: will I enjoy this, and will I feel welcome?
Design can help answer both. In 2024, the U.K.’s Royal Opera House used contemporary design and a rebrand to attract new visitors after discovering that 30 percent of people did not know it staged ballet. The Cleveland Museum of Art introduced its ArtLens Gallery in 2017 , using interactive design to help visitors explore unfamiliar work, while the Toledo Museum of Art launched a new brand identity in 2024 and reported a 20 percent year-over-year rise in visits, with exhibition ticket sales up 140 percent.
From the first touchpoint with an institution to the experience of navigating and participating inside, design communicates what kind of place an institution is and who belongs there. Those signals can give unfamiliar audiences a reason to show up and an experience worth returning for. Four changes can help.
Institutions know their exhibitions and programming intimately. That familiarity can make it difficult to understand why someone else might walk past.
Before changing how an institution presents itself, ask prospective visitors what they think happens inside. What feels unfamiliar? What would make a visit worth their time? Show them existing communications and listen to what they read into the imagery and language.
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s audience research found that young people considered ballet elitist, boring and stuffy. Its website and advertising failed to convey the excitement of attending. That gave the company a specific problem to address: help people imagine an experience they might enjoy. Its broader audience-development effort, which began in 2009, doubled teenage ticket sales over four years.
The lesson applies beyond ballet. An exhibition title may mean everything to a curator while giving a newcomer little reason to investigate. Institutions must show what visitors can experience without requiring specialist knowledge.
Arts institutions need to be noticed first and foremost. They have to earn attention. Then, whatever is noticed must send signals that “this is for me.” Being bold may help, for example, but the right expression will differ for an exhibition of a Renaissance painting versus a scrappy feminist theater company. The identity should reflect the work while giving audiences a way into it.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego presents experimental work that can be challenging for unfamiliar audiences. When we worked with the institution on a new brand identity, it was designed to engage the audience by integrating the letter C into the conversation, like “What do you C?” or “Must C.” A range of expressive versions of the letter brings color and energy to the identity while making the institution’s name part of the conversation.
A distinguished collection or artist lineup may mean little to someone encountering it for the first time. Institutions need to translate what makes their programming distinctive into something a prospective visitor can picture. Give that person an entry point.
For the San Diego Tijuana International Jazz Festival, MiresBall built the identity around its cross-border character. The design takes the vertical bars of the border fence and opens them like stage curtains. Other imagery features an agave plant emerging from a saxophone, using saturated colors to convey the region and a festive atmosphere. Someone unfamiliar with the musicians can still find something inviting.
Institutions can also communicate the wider benefits of engaging with art. One study in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that attending cultural events or venues at least monthly was associated with a 48 percent lower risk of developing depression. That gives institutions a compelling reason to explain what their experiences offer beyond the work on display. A chance to connect with others or find quiet reflection may resonate with someone who would never describe themselves as an art enthusiast.
An institution can describe itself as welcoming, yet that promise may dissipate once people arrive. The welcome communicated outside must continue through the experience inside.
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s ArtLens Gallery, opened in 2017, illustrates how design can help visitors engage with unfamiliar work. Its interactive experiences encourage people to look closely and discover the collection. A 2019 study found that 78 percent of participants said the gallery increased their perception of the museum as welcoming to a wide range of visitors. This year, it launched ArtLens Reimagined, with 21 new interactive experiences and artworks that change regularly, offering return visitors fresh encounters with each visit.
At Laguna Art Museum, an elevator lined with artwork and furnished with a small bench turns a functional journey into an unexpected encounter. It gives visitors something to remember and talk about afterward. Even spaces that seem incidental to the programming can shape how people experience an institution.
Cultural institutions bring people together, entertain, educate and challenge them. Each has an audience to reach, whether broad or niche. Brand and design help package and make that value legible, working alongside programming to create a bridge that brings people to the door, guides them once they’re inside and offers them a reason to return. .