The Rodina creates colourful creature-filled identity for music festival

Amsterdam-based studio The Rodina has created this colourfully eccentric identity for Itch My Ha Ha Ha Showcase Festival in the Czech Republic. The music festival took place between September 2015 and March 2016 and started as a club event which has expanded to include workshops, debates, parties and lectures on top of a programme of live shows.

The Rodina’s identity started with stone-like blobs: “We rendered eight mega boards full of 3D stones with different textures. Then it was easy to cut out individual stones and arrange them into bodily forms. When all of these ‘stone guys’ are gathered together they create one rich, playful ecosystem.”

Inspiration came from a Czech 60s fairytale series Hey Mister, Let’s Play! about two bears who can transform into anything. “They were just perfect because they were communicative, simple and changing appearance all the time.” Each element of the identity is unique in terms of the visual used whether it’s on a poster, ticket, programme or banner. “The identity relates to the festival through the visualisation of music. Itch My Ha Ha Ha is an experimental festival therefore each colour of our stones may be seen as a different interpretation of music – various sounds, rhythms, dynamics, noise and even silence.”

There’s a unity within the crazy colours and creatures of the identity and it’s great to see the studio retain a sense of fun throughout. “When creating a new identity we enjoy finding smart but also fun-to-do solutions,” says The Rodina. “We love to explore the context and dive into the topic of a commission. In this case, it was great to render and assemble all the creatures and landscapes they inhabit while listening to all the musicians.”