Studio Lore—Phonetic Alphabet

Studio Lore is an Amsterdam creative studio of artists and writers from classical and nontraditional narrative backgrounds. We develop a conceptual visual identity based on a contemporary, simple, and bold aesthetic that makes Studio Lore stand out in the creative industry, and also works as a vehicle for unpredictable and meaningful storytelling that seeks to impact culture. “Lore” is the exchange of stories, myths, and legends through word of mouth, so we took as main inspiration the sound of the spoken word. To represent orality graphically, we decided to take the phonetic language, a universal system that opens language up to everyone, as our visual and written tool. We used the International Phonetic Alphabet to form the foundation of this dynamic typographic visual identity that mixes regular characters with phonetic ones. We developed a bespoke, fifty-three-character phonetic alphabet that was applied across the brand identity.