Voces Suaves
Visual Identity
Dedicated to performing baroque music, the Basel-based vocal ensemble Voces Suaves wished for a visual identity that aims for a typographic solution and avoids the clichéd use of baroque paintings. We therefore developed a way to achieve visual opulence through digitally generated calligraphy.
BAROQUE TODAY
We are living in baroque times. Whereas the monarchs and clerics of the 17th and 18th Centuries embellished their authority through ornate architecture and dramatic artworks, today’s high-end brands offer a visual sensationalism through their luxurious flagship stores and advertising campaigns. What was absolutist opulence back then is capitalist splendour today.
GENERATIVE CALLIGRAPHY
While the baroque calligraphers went about their work with brushes and quills, we used the contemporary means of design software to build our own calligraphic tool. Opulent artworks were generated out of the individual concert titles.
Advertising images of today’s luxury industry – our contemporary equivalent of baroque excess – thereby served as our digital ink. As if writing with finger paint, the images are smudged beyond recognition. Depending on the intended atmosphere, the digital brush draws lines that are sometimes softly glowing, or dazzlingly colourful, and at other times menacingly dark. With the simple twist of only a few parameters a wealth of varied visuals can be produced.
The ornamental swashes of the calligraphic artworks keep on swirling and winding. To such an extreme that their verbal information is rendered unreadable. It is only through their formal character and colour that they now represent the original concert titles. In all their singular expressiveness, the artworks still retain a shared and thereby recognizable visual language.
SUMPTUOUS SURROUNDING, TRANQUIL FRAMEWORK
For the various applications of the visual identity, the same luxury brand images that were used for the calligraphic artworks serve as the surrounding for these key visuals to live in. A custom sans-serif typeface was developed for the logotype and all textual information, giving the calligraphic exuberance a tranquil framework to shine in.
Credits
Concept & Design: Afrika
Typefaces: Orgel Regular & Medium by Afrika
Scriptographer: www.scriptographer.org
Website Development: Afrika