Copenhagen Jazz Festival
- Client Copenhagen Jazz Festival
- Project Visual Identity
- Year 2006
Jazz Noir
Music is about pattern recognition. A theme is established, we get to know it, and spend the rest of the time longing for it to come back while the composer or performer teases our synapses by
wandering off, variating, challenging, quoting. Improvisation tickles our desire to get back to the known road while simultaneously enjoying the landscape laid out in the digressions and
detours. Jazz is all about this journey.
In 2006 e-Types created a new visual identity for Copenhagen Jazz Festival. The festival wanted to ensure recognition and visibility - expanding their communications platform beyond the annual
poster done by separate artists to a visual identity with brand recognition from year to year. e-Types created an identity that spans the breadth of jazz - from the classic to the avant-garde.
Through his involvement with the project, Jonas Hecksher, Designer and Creative Director for e-Types, was invited to create the design for the prestigious Jazz Festival Poster 2006. This resulted in a fluorescent poster that sucked in the sun during the day and glowed in the dark when the jazz clubs approached the late hours. Simultaneously a limited edition of four posters was produced.
Playing the C and the… J
At the core of the new identity is the new logo. Designed as an improvisation over the letters C and J, the logo can morph and mutate from time to time, creating a versatile and multi-faceted look for the festival. Designed in black and blue, referencing night time and speakeasies, the logo contrasts the tight, streamline design of the bespoke typefaces.
The typefaces create consistency over time, allowing other visual elements to show greater variation - thereby allowing the design to progress and evolve from year to year.
Jazz Poster with roots
The Jazz Posters designed by Jonas Hecksher are black as night, with letters printed on fluorescent backgrounds creating a feel of nightclubs, jazz and Cool - a decadent yet refined "Jazz Noir". With roots in classic typography, the posters touch upon the word jazz, playfully dissecting it and putting it back together. The letters assume a life of their own, becoming pictures rather than letters. To support this effect, the posters are created in several different versions and can be hung alone, or in series of four.
Through his involvement with the project, Jonas Hecksher, Designer and Creative Director for e-Types, was invited to create the design for the prestigious Jazz Festival Poster 2006. This resulted in a fluorescent poster that sucked in the sun during the day and glowed in the dark when the jazz clubs approached the late hours. Simultaneously a limited edition of four posters was produced.
Playing the C and the… J
At the core of the new identity is the new logo. Designed as an improvisation over the letters C and J, the logo can morph and mutate from time to time, creating a versatile and multi-faceted look for the festival. Designed in black and blue, referencing night time and speakeasies, the logo contrasts the tight, streamline design of the bespoke typefaces.
The typefaces create consistency over time, allowing other visual elements to show greater variation - thereby allowing the design to progress and evolve from year to year.
"The design must encompass jazz in all its shapes and sizes - from swing to avant-garde. It's meant to reference old Blue Note album covers - the ones with guys in black suits, white shirts and skinny ties - but is also meant to be open for interpretation. Jazz is a lot of things to a lot of different people.
We didn't want to create a design that would dictate how people understood jazz. Rather we wanted to create something that invites the viewer to create his own understanding and project it onto the design." comments Jonas Hecksher.
Jazz Poster with roots
The Jazz Posters designed by Jonas Hecksher are black as night, with letters printed on fluorescent backgrounds creating a feel of nightclubs, jazz and Cool - a decadent yet refined "Jazz Noir". With roots in classic typography, the posters touch upon the word jazz, playfully dissecting it and putting it back together. The letters assume a life of their own, becoming pictures rather than letters. To support this effect, the posters are created in several different versions and can be hung alone, or in series of four.
You need to have Flash (at least version 9.0.0) and JavaScript installed and enabled for this element to work.
