We wanted to use music as a starting point for the identity, that would allow for playfulness and structure within the established systems and mathematics that music contains.

In addition to traditional festival materials, we wanted to use new ways to create brand awareness that spoke to the identity of the festival, it’s culture, geography and heritage. Examples include: A rain poncho using the brand patterns for rainy Norwegian days, a traditional Norwegian sweater, connecting the brand to traditional knitting patterns, and a digital campaign where people could play and compose, unknowingly engaging the brand on our music sequencer.

Redesigning a festival brand — whose program ranges from the classical to the Avant Garde — it was important to create a playful, versatile platform, that spoke to different audiences in a unified voice, yet allowed for individuality in content and appearance. The festival had created a new strategic communication plan simultaneously with the launch of the new profile, in which the festival programming and content was being aimed at three specific target audiences, in hopes of reaching two previously untouched audiences. This became an integral aspect of the identity development, which required a strong unified brand, with flexibility to speak to different audiences.

Looking to bridge musical & visual language, we started with what they both had in common: being constructed from a single fundamental element — a note & a pixel.

Using this singular element to build the iconic 'F' logo — like a chord constructed of various notes — we established a mathematical system that allows the logo to grow, subdivide and rhythmically repeat like musical units creating a beat or tempo.

By visualising music through modular systems, we created an identity that is strong and flexible — with endless possibilities — yet never looses brand recognition. A logo that is both a traditional logo, and a living identity.

Ticket sales for the festival's first year with its new identity were the highest they had experienced in the last seven years. The combined strategic communication plan and brand campaign allowed them to reach to two new audiences that often felt alienated by the festival due to it's previous identity and programming: young adults and young families. The new identity and it's successful 2013 program gave the festival new exposure internationally and nationally within the press and social media, allowing them to recruit world-famous musicians such as Steve Reich to be a part of the upcoming 2014 festival.