Univers : identité

Omaha Performing Arts is centered on performance. But more importantly, it takes great pride in the community of Omaha. The core of the mark is a geometric O, stemming from the word “Omaha.” It echoes throughout each of the letterforms in its acronym: opa. The visual system celebrates the life and soul of this incredible institution.

The Museum of Failure (MOX) features a collection of failed products and services from around the world. Message: It is often the mistakes that lead to success. The new identity symbolizes this culture of failure. In the logo, two strong symbols are combined to form a universal symbol: the positive green tick  for success, and the negative red X as a cross-out symbol for errors. The result is a green X for the positive power of failure—as a key symbol of the new corporate design. In this way, the positive power of unsuccessful attempts becomes apparent. It all serves as an invitation to change one’s point of view: Because mistakes are a good thing.

Munich Leukemia Laboratory offers reliable diagnostics to tackle leukemia, a disease that afflicts many people in Germany. The aim of the new corporate design was to leverage the claim “See behind. Go beyond” by illustrating the laboratory’s diagnostic and therapeutic approach and make it more easily understandable. The visualization of the idea of reading information from blood takes center stage in the concept. As symbols of the laboratory’s work, blood cells become key visuals, underlined by a set of contrasting colors. They also constitute a complete visual language while conveying the company’s innovative spirit.

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.

Through this visual identity system, we intended to show the working methodology of the artist He Jing, whose art practices are always based on re-empowering daily objects. Therefore, we took the concept of construction and deconstruction as the starting point and then built a typography system that refers to her artwork. The movement of constant transformation is the core idea of the typography system. The logotype blends English and Chinese characters together to indicate the diverse culture background of the artist herself.

Concept
This poster series was designed for the art exhibition Chronicle. It features one general poster and one poster for each artist partaking in the exhibition. Each individual poster was designed with the featured artwork of the respective artist in mind, while keeping with the general theme of the series.

Yolélé is a purpose-driven African food company committed to transforming communities in rural West Africa. It was founded by both Pierre Thiam, the celebrated Senegalese-born chef, restaurateur, and activist, and the food entrepreneur Philip Teverow. Pentagram designed the identity for Yolélé and packaging for its first product, a line of fonio, an ancient grain that is similar to quinoa. Thiam saw Paula Scher’s map painting of Africa and wanted to commission a drawing for the Yolélé brand. The designers extended this into a visual language, including custom hand-drawn typography and icons. The map highlights the area of West Africa where fonio is grown.

Africolor recently celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. However, the festival still has ants in its ears and remains curious and a pioneer of new talent. The 2019 edition was a year of reunions with the artists who have punctuated the history of the festival, but also of creations with young artists from the Afro-beat electronic contemporary scene. Graphically, the word that served as my creative thread was “resonance,” the vibration over time, over borders, through the bodies, souls, minds … Africolor never stops ringing! I translated it through a typographical game that makes the title vibrate, which creates a joyful rhythm and suggests that the good vibes are spreading.

The DEMO Festival is a twenty-four-hour showcase of innovative motion design on eighty screens throughout the Amsterdam Central train station. The identity had to attract the most talented designers, so it was important to reflect the innovative potential of motion design. The identity is built around a variable typeface, the shape of which changes according to a self-developed script. Any word entered into the script has its own animated character. On the website, the word “DEMO” is distorted at will by anyone who visits the website by moving the cursor. Despite this distortion, “DEMO” remains legible at all time.

Tanzhaus Zürich, one of the most important centers for contemporary choreography and performance in Switzerland, received a new building in September 2019 by the architecture firm Barozzi Veiga. The logo’s endless typography cycle echoes the trapezoidal windows of the building. The lettering bounds on the short sides of the figure, trifling with space and time. Time, rhythm, space, movement, connectivity, play, and accessibility were important features during the development process. The logo is choreographed with the axes of time, perspective, space (e.g., a background image), and color. This invites continuous play among all elements—just as in contemporary dance.