Studio Zwupp’s festival identity combines found type with abstract imagery

Forward Festival takes place in Vienna, Munich and Zurich and brings together creatives from all over the world. Having created the identity for 2016, Studio Zwupp was commissioned again for this year’s festival, and took the phrase “birth of an idea” as its inspiration. Combining type and illustration, a collection of abstract shapes allude to this notion of germination. The studio has animated parts of the identity, which again highlights this idea of growing and movement, and maintains an air of ambiguity.

As for the typographic elements of the identity, the studio has referenced Wiener Werkstätte – a production community established in 1903 by Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann that brought together architects, artists and designers working in diverse fields. The collective had a strong visual identity, and Studio Zwupp has adapted the patterns and graphic icons Wiener Werkstätte used. “The typography is a mixture of Colophon Foundry’s Basis Grotesque, with quirky Wiener Werkstätte letters we’ve found from old posters and postcards,” explains the team. “The colour choices were easy: red for Vienna, blue for Zurich and yellow for Munich.”

Applied across programmes, posters, banners and a website, they kept the identity adaptable, so the simple aesthetic allows for easy manipulations. For instance, the different components and combination of typefaces means that in the programme each speaker’s name looks slightly different and has its own corresponding graphic mark.

Despite the seemingly simple approach, for the poster especially, it took Studio Zwupp a while to reach an outcome it was happy with. “It was a journey of 100 drafts to the final poster. Sounds horrible, and it was horrible. But we weren’t happy with our outcomes,” says the studio. “After the final version, we decided to call the journey Gallery of Dismissed and made a poster exhibition with the all in Vienna, Munich and Zurich.”