Museum of Brands

The Museum of Brands collects together brand packaging and adverts from the Victorian era to the present day, presenting them in a series of engrossing, entertaining, and nostalgic exhibitions.

Enjoy access to the Museum of Brands with The London Pass®

• Your pass gives you access to the Museum of Brands.
• Take a look at 12,000 original pieces of brand packaging and advertising.
• Learn about the history of brands, how they have developed with technological advances, responded to social change and affected the way we see and experience the world.
• Explore one of the Museum of Brands’ temporary exhibitions, covering subjects as diverse as childhood toys from bygone eras and the future of packaging in an ecologically pressured world.

The Museum of Brands was established in 1984 and takes visitors on a nostalgic journey through 200 years of social change, consumer culture and lifestyle.

The collection comprises over half a million items concentrating on those areas that have transformed daily life – entertainment, travel, leisure, music, fashion, and children’s toys, plus postcards, magazines, wartime ephemera, and royal souvenirs. It represents a vast social history, providing evidence of the dynamic evolution in our consumer lifestyle and how technology has enabled change and progress. The story is told through the visual medium of design, graphics, and commercial art.

Museum of Brands highlights

• The Time Tunnel charts the development of our favourite brands over the years, allowing visitors to step back into their childhoods, imagine the childhoods of previous generations, and consider the differences and similarities between them.
• Shop for retro brand adverts and paraphernalia in the onsite gift shop. It’s filled with a whole host of souvenir and gift ideas.

Museum of Brands facts

• The ubiquitous social media brand Facebook is predominantly coloured blue and white because founder Mark Zuckerberg has red-green colour blindness.
• Museum of Brands founder Robert Opie has a collection of over 500,000 original pieces of brand packaging and advertising, 12,000 of which are currently on display in the museum.
• Lamborghini was originally a tractor manufacturer. So when someone brags about having a ‘Lambo’, they may well have purchased it for tillage.

Don't miss

Time Tunnel

The Museum of Brands’ Time Tunnel is their permanent exhibition, charting the development of brand packaging and advertising since the Victorian era. The Time Tunnel shows how our favourite brands have responded to their historical contexts as world events, social struggles, new technologies, fashions, personalities and competition encouraged them to change. Showcasing brands as part of a wider social fabric, the exhibition reveals seismic changes in society, whilst also connecting us with those of previous generations, revealing our common need for entertainment, comfort, distraction and pleasure.

Special Events and Temporary Exhibitions

The Museum of Brands runs a plethora of different courses, activities, and workshops throughout the year. These include multi-week business courses, networking events, expert-led discussion groups and panels, and a whole host of special temporary exhibitions. All temporary exhibitions included within the price of a general admission ticket are included with The London Pass. Particular courses and talks which require a separate ticket are not. 

• Follow this link to see the Museum of Brands Workshops and Education
• Follow this link to see the Museum of Brands Current Exhibitions

Best deal in London - I have used the London Pass my last two trips and it has been wonderful. Especially if you add the Tube option, a great way to see sights you may not have if purchased separately. Would recommend it to anyone.
Sherry Waddell from the USA

Getting in: present your pass at the main entrance.