Madison Avenue’s signature is on the New Museum of Contemporary Art—literally. Last fall, two designers from the branding firm Wolff Olins scrawled their John Hancocks on the final beam of the museum’s new $50 million home in downtown Manhattan. This flourish capped a sometimes contentious collaboration that exemplifies the delicate dance between nonprofits and the marketing agencies they hire.

After committing to the project, the New Museum asked Wolff Olins to clarify its brand and craft a logo in June 2005. The museum needed a clear identity to meet its ambitious attendance goal: 200,000 visitors in its first year, double the traffic of its (much smaller) space in nearby Soho. With the many cultural options available to New Yorkers, “you are competing for time,” says Karl Heiselman, C.E.O. of Wolff Olins. The agency, whose corporate clients include General Electric and Washington Mutual, agreed to work pro bono. Both sides say the agency helped the museum bring its mission statement—“New art, new ideas”—to life throughout the space, inspiring everything from the staff’s uniforms to the café menu.

But the partnership also produced unexpected tension. Wolff Olins says that despite the museum’s reputation for focusing on the new, it turned out to be rather conservative. The New Museum says Wolff Olins pushed ideas better suited to commercial clients. Karen Wong, the museum’s director of external affairs, says the museum rejected branding ideas (see “The Discard Pile”) that threatened to overwhelm the art, seemed too retail, or disrespected its biggest patrons, as with a proposal to etch the names of donors, including those of Bed Bath & Beyond founders Warren Eisenberg and Leonard Feinstein, into the poured-concrete floor. “We love that energy,” Wong says. “But then there are all these realistic things that have a lot to do with, at the end of the day, respect.”

The logo ended up being fairly straightforward: simply “New Museum” in a boldface sans-serif font. But in a twist reminiscent of Wolff Olins’ “Red” campaign to fight AIDS in Africa, the logo has space between “New” and “Museum” for changeable text. Wolff Olins suggested “New New Museum,” “New Déjà Vu Museum,” and “New Sweet Jesus Museum.” For the first year, at least, the museum will stick to using its new address.