NB Studio crafts a contemporary, rhythmic id for the Philharmonie Luxembourg

Philharmonie Luxembourg, identified formally because the Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte Live performance Corridor, is a prestigious live performance corridor positioned within the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg Metropolis. Opening in 2005, it seats as much as 1,500 folks and performs host to round 400 performances annually.

Designed by architect Christian de Portzamparc, it is a beautiful constructing boasting wonderful acoustics and an iconic frontage, immediately drawing the attention with its 823 facade columns fabricated from white metal.

The establishment’s new visible id, designed by London-based branding and communications company NB Studio, is designed to attach with a brand new technology of concert-goers by evoking the emotion, expertise and the eclecticism of music.

Most notably, the brand takes its cue from the constructing itself and makes use of the facility of artistic coding to pulsate the columns in response to the rhythm of any piece of music. Learn on to learn how they developed this wide-ranging and radical id.

The transient

At the beginning of the method, Philharmonie Luxembourg defined that it wanted to increase its attain previous its loyal viewers of classical music lovers. To ring a bell with a youthful, culturally curious and digital-minded viewers, it required a brand new visible id that might break freed from the elitist connotations hooked up to classical music and amplify the total range of experiences the Philharmonie has to supply.

In collaboration with cultural strategist Cecilia Martin, NB Studio got down to harness the collective ardour of everybody within the organisation, from common director to bassoonist. Based mostly on this analysis, the staff, led by artistic director Alan Dye and design director Sam Pittman, developed a brand new model platform that champions openness, musical eclecticism and the irreplaceable expertise of dwell music.

The emblem

NB’s emblem design takes its cue from Philharmonie’s iconic constructing, an architectural landmark in Luxembourg. However the emblem is greater than only a depiction of the static monument. Within the new design, the vertical columns pulsate in response to the rhythm of the music.

NB developed a bespoke, generative emblem animation instrument in collaboration with artistic coder Patrik Hübner. Created utilizing a mix of JavaScript, WebGL and Vue.js, the instrument generates audio-reactive wave patterns based mostly on any piece of sound fed into it.

Which means the brand can flex and adapt to the music that the viewers would possibly hear in live performance. The brand new system locations music on the very coronary heart of the model, whether or not it is electro, opera, jazz or classical.

“Making a connection between the constructing and the music performed inside was on the core of our answer,” explains Sam Pittman, design director at NB Studio. “Folks inside Luxembourg and past knew the constructing, however so many had no thought what really went on inside.

“From the get-go, we knew that we needed sound to play a serious function within the id,” he continues. “It is the lifeblood of the Philharmonie, and dealing with a digital-first mindset allowed us to pair sound with animation, however not in a standard method.

“Our generative instrument utilises the real-life waveform to drive the animation, bringing the model to life by music. The instrument is a big step ahead in Philharmonie’s digital transformation programme. Each model exists within the digital world, but the rules of the bulk nonetheless solely exist for static purposes; the instrument strikes away from this mind-set.”

Typeface, graphics and animation

Basel Grotesk was chosen because the model’s singular typeface resulting from its trendy but timeless aesthetic. Operating by the brand new model id is a system of traces ruled by the brand. These traces inform the model’s new distinctive typographic remedy.

Based mostly on the concept all music is skilled by vibrations, the letters that make up the musical scale (a to g) resonate throughout the web page or display screen. NB created a full suite of resonating letterforms, together with the numerous accented letters required for the varied set of languages utilized by the Philharmonie.

A brand new graphic system for live performance key visuals was additionally developed, shifting the model away from a practical method that solely centered on delivering data to a brand new one which majors on emotion. In every key visible, typography is used to precise the sensation and story of a chunk of music featured inside the live performance.

Impressed by psychologist Robert Thayer’s ‘mannequin of temper’, the spotlight items of music are categorised earlier than being artistically expressed utilizing a mix of typography and color. For editorial content material, NB additionally created a wide range of picture remedies based mostly on vertical traces.

Its analysis discovered that the target market was cautious of the Philharmonie due to its associations with classical music, which they discovered to be elitist, daunting and boring. NB’s idea addresses these misconceptions, however with a twist, relating them again to the viewers’s lives.

Inside the visuals, the misconceptions emanate from the devices: a tongue-in-cheek visualisation of what the target market hears when listening to classical music. Dropped at life in movement by animated sort specialist Mat Voyce, the marketing campaign will dwell in digital advert areas at Luxembourg Airport in addition to on cultural columns and trams across the metropolis.

To advertise the launch of the brand new id and seize the eye of the brand new target market, NB was additionally tasked with making a model consciousness marketing campaign.

Model structure and naming

An extra essential side of the brand new visible id is that it recognises the Philharmonie is not only a corridor. Over time, it is grown into an organisation with many distinct choices, together with an academy, a youngsters’s provide, a membership programme, an novice orchestra and numerous festivals.

In response to those developments, NB created a brand new model structure which unites the whole lot underneath the grasp model. As a part of this course of, the resident orchestra, previously the ‘Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg’, was re-named the Philharmonic Luxembourg.

The swap to English creates better worldwide enchantment and helps place the orchestra on a world stage. The brand new design system is constant and recognisable however nonetheless permits for differentiation. For instance, the brand used alongside the youngsters’s provide contains playful letter characters, every with its personal distinct character.

Constructed for the Twenty first century

Alan Dye, proprietor and artistic director of NB Studio, pays tribute to the collaborative nature of the undertaking. “Daring, progressive design can solely occur if in case you have a courageous shopper that embraces change,” he says. “The Philharmonie Luxembourg had been all of those – they noticed the facility of a good suggestion and completely championed our imaginative and prescient creatively, strategically and technically.

“Music makes us all really feel in another way,” he provides. “It touches our each emotion; it makes us really feel blissful, unhappy or contemplative. The Philharmonie is the emotional centre of town, and music actually is the assembly level of cultures, so we needed to create an inclusive system that meant one thing for everybody, reflecting the enjoyment and sensibility of each sound.”

Cultural strategist Cecilia Martín provides: “A hyper-connected and resourceful youthful technology is making classical establishments worldwide rethink their method and embrace range and equality. It was time to alter Philharmonie’s picture of classical music away from monotonous photos of males in black and white. The Twenty first century requires a daring, vibrant, vibrant, dynamic, shifting and sensorial method: a visible spectacle that brings to life the richness of every expertise. Shock in each observe.”

“What we love probably the most in regards to the new id,” says Aliki Zachariadis, head of selling and digital division on the Philharmonie, “is that it was constructed for a Twenty first-century model that primarily lives within the digital world. As an establishment there to share musical experiences, we could not be extra happy to see how NB Studio put music on the core of each design element and touchpoint they’ve rebranded. There aren’t any doubts that this new, music-reactive emblem will turn into as iconic as our constructing.”