Aurelio Sanchez’s minimal identity for SIW inspired by brutalism

Date
19 December 2016

Designer Aurelio Sanchez found inspiration in brutalism for his colourful yet minimal design for Social Innovation Week San Francisco that was held earlier this year. The brief was to provide branding that could be used to promote a series of exhibitions, demonstrations and lectures that embody the ideals of the event, reflecting its attitude to design and innovation. “The first idea came to me was brutalist architecture. I wanted to translate that brutalism to a graphic environment. Modules, boxes, elements combined together to create a branding system,” says Aurelio. “I started working with the three words of the name to create a logo. A logo that could mutate thanks to repetitions creating a pattern. The pattern, words or icons will be the main element to play with and set up all the design neccessitites in a flexible and responsive system.”

The identity is tightly composed with a careful application of colour and type combined with two graphic elements – a lozenge and an arrow. “I wanted to keep the system very strict. Plain colour, modular spaces that adapt themselves to different necessities, typography and patterns, always in a very rigid structure. Sometimes that stiffness can be very flexible, adaptable and useful for a graphic system,” says Aurelio. “In this project, colour was the conversation. Colour is always something very personal and subjective, I had to test different but similar colour palettes in order to find the right one.”

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Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

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Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

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Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

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Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Above

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

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Left

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Right

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Above

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Above

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Above

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Above
Left

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Right

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

Above

Aurelio Sanchez: Social Innovation Week identity

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About the Author

Owen Pritchard

Owen joined It’s Nice That as Editor in November of 2015 leading and overseeing all editorial content across online, print and the events programme, before leaving in early 2018.

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