DOT Identity

Aug 6, 2018

DOT

1.0

introduction

The DOT profile has been one of our passion projects, as we saw a huge potential in their work. Here lies an opportunity for an authentic, geeky and hugely popular brand we believe — and working on this has been an absolute pleasure from the first conversations to when the merchandise is worn at every festival. DOT is an event organisation, deeply embedded in the culture of the Norwegian Electronic music and clubbing scene. In record time they have built up an audience and a reputation on the scale of European majors, but have lacked a unified design system and a visual cohesion to go with it. After some preliminary talks, we decided to commission them in constructing a mission statement — a short document detailing their goals and intent:

MISSION-STATEMENT.txt

We believe people want unique experiences, discoveries and adventures. Both pleasant and provocative. We believe in being challenged. That’s why at DOT we work towards a mix of music, dance, visual art, physical art and inventions. We want to combine all of it, putting the full experience to the test. The DOT family is about experimenting with interiors, techniques and narratives. DOT is about new spaces. And we hope to meet you there. DOT is a collective of artists, DJs and organizers. We make techno events in its broadest sense.

Phase 1: initiate

We now have a clarity of intent. Using the parts of the statement that I outlined, let’s start a process in four parts:

1.1: “DOT is about new spaces”

Starting with a cube, representing space, we express the wordmark on a simple pixel grid, reminiscent of early computing.

1.2: “Provocative”

Compressed and simplified, the wordmark becomes increasingly distinct and illegible. It should be a little hard to decipher, but once you get it, you’ll remember it.

1.3: “Experimenting”

The wordmark is run through a series of processes involving printing and re-digitization, releasing it from the grid

1.4: “Family”

DOT is about being a safer space, where no-one should need to look over their shoulder. We incorporated a holding shape from Japanese heraldry to indicate a family crest, where everyone is welcome.

typography

Eurostile Bold Extended in all caps worked wonders when we «beta-tested» it at an event. Bombastic yet humanist, with references to early rave parties and subversive culture. It was the official typeface for the Norwegian police for a long time after all, not to mention a plethora of science fiction films.

ida nerbø am-talis the arbiter josh wink miss mostly

To subvert the only limitation of Eurostile (its massive width), we elect to break the first rule of typography school — DO NOT STRECH THE FONTS. This allows us massive freedom in choosing emphasis in layouts, such as line-ups on posters.

Colors

With implementations and printing methods spanning from computer screens to Riso machines, setting too many rules would be hard to follow. We therefore have quite lax rules about colours to begin with: Keep them limited, make good choices. Since we will be working closely with DOT going forward, we have time to experiment. In time we will no doubt see some hues that stick out and become our signature.

Thanks for watching. Be sure to let me know if you have questions, need a hand or would like to discuss a project! You can reach me at +47 41674867 or via hei@jacoblysgaard.com

Posters & Cover art

Jun 15, 2017

Posters & Cover art

Mhost Likely event series 2022

Cover art for season 01 of the music podcast Lysgaard Leverer. I have made a lot of these, but if I showed you all of them we would be here all day.

Nabovarsel posters

Nabovarsel is Bergen’s most critically acclaimed club night, spanning over a decade of quality underground electronic music. It also functions as a record label, podcast network and blog. I have been head of design for this lovable band of misfits since 2009.

The poster for our February festival is pretty special, since it includes a website and a live-stream as an integral part of the poster itself. You can see the whole thing at nabovarsel.info/live, if it’s still up there.

See the whole site & live stream

The live-stream of the festival is now a recording of course, but the weird site still lives.

Take me there

Limited editions available in the shop

In addition to the “regular” event based posters, we have made some pretty super exclusive limited edition silk screened posters as well. You might wanna check those out.

Take me there

Space Lab identity

Sep 29, 2015

Space Lab Identity

Space Lab is part of the University of Bergen.

Our energy system is the major contributor to climate change. At the same time, society is shaped by the way we produce and consume energy. Modern energy sources are rarely visible in our everyday surroundings, yet they enable our form of life and make possible most things we take for granted. Understanding how we are ‘energized’ is crucial to understanding why societies are the way they are, and the possibilities for change. Geography is essential to understand the interconnected challenges of energy and climate change. The Spaces of climate and energy laboratory (SPACELAB) connects research on the geographies of energy, climate and society. The aim of the lab is to generate an engaging academic and intellectual environment to stimulate high quality research on these issues. It is based at the Department of Geography, University of Bergen.

The Spaces of climate and energy laboratory (SPACELAB) connects research on the geographies of energy, climate and society.

Inspiration

Our inspiration process circled around processes and phenomenon from nature versus its man-made counterparts; in what shapes does the technology of man and mother nature meet? Rock strata, aerodynamics textbooks, interstellar orbit patterns and subatomic particle movements fills the sketchbook.

Emblem

Space Lab’s emblem depicts an abstraction of topography, layers, orbits, radiation and waves. A perfect symbol of the intersection between the natural and the synthetic.

Main emblem

Logotype

Space Lab’s main logotype is set in a modified version of SciFly Sans, a friendly but geometrically based sans made by Tomi Haaparanta of the Suomi Type Foundry.

Colors

Space Lab’s main color is a bright turquoise, to balance concepts of earth and science. Together with the dark and light grey, these are the colors of highest priority. The second level compliments it to fill in key areas in the color wheel, whereas the tertiary level serves to calm further use down (and avoid things looking like a carnival).

Typography

Space Lab uses Roboto as its main typeface in all written material. Roboto is a modern sans serif, developed and famously used by Google, and straddles technology and humanism. It can be used boldly from the thin hairline weight to the massive black, but any lengthy texts should stick to either the light or the regular weight.

Thanks for watching!

Check out some more projects

Norwegian Hull Club

Apr 17, 2014

Norwegian Hull Club

How do you take an insurance giant from print to digital and modernize the presentation while keeping the hundred years of tradition and expertise in check?

As a part of Sixty, I worked on the brand update for the marine insurance mainstay Norwegian Hull Club. NHC is a mutual marine insurance company serving Members & Clients worldwide. The Club ranks among the largest pure marine insurers in the world. Our job at Sixty was to update the company’s visual identity, keeping the class only a hundred years of experience can give you, while utilizing modern web technologies and new movements in design to bring the company up to speed. A large part of this was the company’s new website; a project with some very unique challenges. The site needs to be accessible to the huge ships and vessels in the middle of the ocean—usually online via satellite link, and on hardware from.. well, not the newest model. The site also needs to organize a large and ever growing array of information, all of which needs to be readily available to anyone, anywhere. From a prospective client just looking around, to a ship captain scrambling to save her ship from running aground.

See the full website

norclub.no

Logo & Palette update

The old palette was very troublesome to replicate in different colour systems, and the main typography had not aged as gracefully as it had hoped. We developed a new palette that would stay the same no matter where you put it, web, business cards, you name it. The new brand typography uses Whitney and Abril, two complimentary typefaces that will hopefully look as good a hundred years from now as it does today.

Short icon set

Vessels

Correspondents

News

Emergency

Amended color palette

Main blue

Warning / Danger

Action / Attention

Company profile: Sixty

This was a project made as a part of Sixty, a design and development agency specializing in design for the broadcasting industry and creating exceptional user experiences for bringing the web and traditional TV together. Check out some more awesome case studies at the Sixty Website.

sixty.no

Phono festival identity

Jan 1, 2012

The Phono festival is one of the largest festivals in western Norway, held every year in the fall. In previous years they used to change the entire identity annually, but after my version, they decided to make my base identity permanent, and invite artists to create new posters and graphic styles for each year. This project also received gold at the Visuelt design awards.

One of my starting points was that I wished to mix together two looks – a very old school, opera ticket style, with a modern, intricate, super detailed design aesthetic. I quickly found Forum, a great typeface by Denis Masharov to solidify one end of that spectrum. With Forum as the main typeface, it’s important for the logotype and other stuff to go nuts in the opposite direction.

Then it came time to do the teaser poster, to be released months ahead of the festival itself. I started making a series of technique studies, to really nail the style I was going for. You can actually buy the originals, if you want.