Prepared Surroundings is an annual international festival with a focus on experimental sound and technological art. Its purpose is to develop the synthesis of various arts with music, science and technology.
In this visual identity I tried to reflect on relationship between artificial and natural, silent and loud, presence and absence. Can a sound be totally mute, or silence totally loud? Can something be present in absence, or vice versa? What is actually a surrounding?
As a logo, I took the double r from the name of the festival, and placed it in square brackets, which usually indicate transcribed sound – so as a sound, it's single; it's flickering in its simultaneous presence in absence. Throughout the identity it can transform to a space, in which letters – like people, objects, sounds in the environment – relate to each other, collide, unify.
The key graphics in identity include vibrant textured backgrounds and simple objects, commonly associated with the experimental music – cables and input/output ports. Yet they always are depicted metaphorically, by their shape and texture referring to some objects in surroundings. Such approach would also help make a lot of unique designs within the frames of recognizable identity.
I made only a few necessary things as merch, mostly they are using the various logo scaling.
Also the festival program is designed, which is actually an A3 sheet folded as a zine. On its back there is a poster, so it would left as a memorable thing after the festival and not be thrown out.
The festival's website design is pretty minimalistic as well, except for the entrance scroll animation.
