Museum of Brands

Much of our lives are shaped, subtly sometimes but often not, by branding. Your shoes, watch, what you had for lunch.

- DAVID ELLIS

The pint that might come later. Who can say with a straight face they make their choices on the grounds of quality alone? We accept our favourites even as corporate mergers grind them down and private equity funds strip their very essence. But brands bind us: advertising works, kids.

Proof can be found on Lancaster Road, a side street around the corner from Ladbroke Grove underground station. It is not where you expect to find a museum. But then, like with many brands, the name is a bit of a ruse. It is more a gallery of the past than a museum; there is a lot to look at, but it is short on the information museums provide, at least the kind found typed on placards. There is still plenty to learn.

The entrance sets the tone: there, a oncewhite frontage is now a collage of primary colours, of the reds and blues and yellows that businesses use to entice us. It is a stockpile of logos, names deliberately misspelt as a way to sidestep copyright laws: Pesril, Waklers, XOX.