London Museum rebrand hit by pigeon plagiarism row

A pair of Manchester-based designers are calling for greater transparency in the creative industries after claiming the London Museum’s high-profile rebrand by Uncommon Creative Studio bears a striking resemblance to their own “Coo Pigeon” design – conceived in 2012 and documented publicly through galleries, exhibitions and timestamped social media stretching back to 2017.

May Wild Studio, supported by Anti Copying in Design (ACID) – the UK’s leading design and intellectual property (IP) campaigning organisation – say the resemblance was first brought to their attention in summer 2024.

Curators and creative professionals familiar with their work (pictured, left) contacted the couple believing they had been commissioned as part of the museum’s £437m relocation branding identity redesign (pictured, right).

May Wild Studio operates as a small family-run social arts practice, focused on art and design education and public art community projects. Michael is an art and design lecturer in Rochdale and Rebecca an artist, designer and educator; together they bring art and craft workshops to deprived communities and schools in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.

The new London Museum – formerly the Museum of London – is scheduled to open at West Smithfield in late 2026. Its rebrand was created by Uncommon Creative Studio, which has stated the design was developed independently.

On the newly branded London Museum’s website a blog post from June 2024 entitled “How we created the new London Museum brand”, states: “The pigeon and splat speak to a historic place full of dualities, a place where the grit and the glitter have existed side by side for millennia,” and is attributed to Sharon Ament, director of London Museum.

However, May Wild noted the wording echoed a similar sentiment to a post on their own website from 2018 about their own pigeon: “Coo pigeon is a celebration of our cities, representing two sides of them: sometimes run down but sometimes glorious, a pest but also of a creature of value. They are a story of finding beauty and humour in the everyday, in the forgotten, in our common humble pigeon and its good-luck golden droppings.”

After making private approaches to both the museum and Uncommon Creative Studio, the husband and wife team, say Uncommon declined in May 2025 to grant any attribution, stating the London Museum pigeon was in no way connected to May Wild’s Coo Pigeon with its signature golden poo splat concept.

In a joint statement, the couple said: “We’ve spent over a decade developing and handmaking Coo Pigeon, documenting every stage, working with local storytelling connected to people and place, and pouring our hearts into this concept. To see the London Museum pigeon celebrated internationally without any acknowledgment of our work has been difficult. We’re seeking respectful acknowledgment, not conflict. Our hope has always been for open dialogue around attribution and visibility for independent creatives. This isn’t about blame — it’s about encouraging better practice in the sector.”

Anti Copying in Design co-founder and chair Dids MacDonald added: “Rebecca and Michael are reserving their position and taking legal advice. They have done everything possible over many months to be reasonable and enter into positive discussions through their membership of Anti Copying in Design.

“This case reflects wider challenges faced by independent designers whose long-established work later resembles high-profile commercial or public-sector projects. May Wild Studio have a clear, dated audit trail for their designs, and situations like this underline the importance of robust due-diligence processes – particularly where publicly funded cultural institutions are involved.”