No. 199: A Trio of Brilliant Branding Projects, Drawings by a Bouroullec Brother, Celebrating Indian Design + More

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Design Diary, a collection of five projects from across the world that have impressed us this week. 

For more along these lines (and so many others) follow along all day, every day on Instagram @AIGAeyeondesignFacebook, and Twitter @AIGAeyeondesign.

1
Amanda & Erik, Skapa drömmar—forma platser identity

This is nice, isn’t it? All that pink and teal and blue, those lovely textures and marbly bits and shapes, and exotic ö letters. Very nice, very nice indeed. What is it? It’s the visual identity for Skapa drömmar—forma platser (“Make Dreams – Shape Places”), a design residency arranged by Art Inside Out, created by the fair hands of Swedish agency Amanda & Erik. “The starting point for the visual identity was our discovery of a photo documenting archeological finds from Slöinge, the small rural community outside of Falkenberg where Samir Alj Fält’s residency took place,” studio co-founder Amanda Berglund explains. “The objects and aesthetics in this photo stood as inspiration for creating a modular set of shapes and textures relating to dreams, places and materiality.”

2
Xavi Martinez, Sala Equis identity

Barcelona-based graphic designer Xavi Martinez has recently been spending a lot of time in “the last porn cinema in Madrid,” thanks to his work creating the branding Sala Equis, a new “cultural space created for film lovers,” that now sits in the spruced up old Cinema Alba site. Martinez was approached by the space to help them build a new brand identity as well as visual communications, packaging, signage, and a website.

His eye-catching, type-led identity system takes its cues from old cinema billboard advertising and light boxes, but in a way that feels fresh and contemporary, forming a playful and flexible system.

3
Kawal Oberoi, Swatches of India

We blummin’ love India and its rich design heritage, read about us banging on about Mumbai right here. So a big old THANK YOU to Kawal Oberoi, a designer based in Kasol, Himachal Pradesh, for getting in touch with this gem, Swatch Bharat, “a collection of Indian vernacular visuals or ‘desi aesthetics’ created to inspire designers, illustrators and visual artists.”

Oberoi says that Swatch Bharat “was born out of fear and frustration.” He continues: “Fear of losing expressions of ‘desi [local/indigenous] aesthetics’ we see around India to the western aesthetics brought in by globalization. The fear is quite real as a lot of what you will see in Swatch Bharat has been replaced, repainted, or discarded by people.

“Frustration from seeing the typical Indian elements and style being re-interpreted by fellow designers and ad agencies. Chai, moustaches, turbans etc. I felt that it could be due to lack of online reference point for desi aesthetics created by Indians themselves.”

Good on you Kawal!

4
Juillet, from Ronan Bouroullec

Proving that he’s not just the carpet guy, this cute new book entitled Juillet from Swiss publisher Nieves presents a small selection of Ronan Bouroullec’s recent drawings. One half of famed Paris-based design studio often known as the Bouroullec Brothers with his bro Erwan, Ronan is usually found working on more product-based design, ranging from jewellery to spatial arrangements and architecture. However, busy, well-rounded chaps that they are, the brothers also work across drawings, videos, and photography. We love the strange curves and murky palettes of these images, which also remind us of the bloody excellent Bouroullec brothers’ Textile Field at the V&A, for London Design Festival back in 2011. It really was a lot of fun. Juillet had its official launch earlier this month, and as there’s just 100 copies of it, we’ll warrant it won’t be about for long.

5
Córdova Canillas, The Sound of Silence identity

If you don’t get Paul Simon’s Sound of Silence stuck in your head when you read this project name, frankly we don’t trust you as far as we could throw you. Ditto if you’re not reminded of that seminal Simpsons scene where grandpa does that The Graduate thing against the church window. But we digress. Martí Canillas of Barcelona-based studio Córdova Canillas got in touch about this fun, playful, and oh-so-adaptable identity for Sound of Silence, a company offering “meditation and sensory experiences, carried out by sensory stimuli and conducted through a yoga practice.”

The concept looks to create a “modern, distinctive” look and feel, and is based on finding a balance between “sound” and “silence.” The studio explains: “The circle represents a cycle, and creates a geometric frame for the logotype. A balance of the two words given by the brand name is obtained with the clockwise direction of the letters, and the inverted rotation of the words preserve the concept of opposite ideas.”

The logo can be constantly changed to house different symbols depending on the branding’s applications.

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