Logo & Identity for the
José de Guimarães
International Arts Centre
International Arts Centre
CIAJG is an exhibition centre and a reflection platform on curating the contemporary art world. It hosts the vast art collection of José de Guimarães and other pieces of his own work as the museum’s permanent collection, resourcing to temporary exhibitions to establish dialogues and interactions with contemporary artists.
We were invited to design the logo and graphic identity for the museum.
Located in the city center of Guimarães, CIAJG, brings together pieces from different times, places and contexts. It is looking for new ways to read the history of the arts by placing emerging artists and their problematics side by side with traditional, popular and vernacular works from different cultures. This is reflected on the way it uses space, and we believe it should be transported to its visual communication.
We have engaged with the design of the identity around the premises of layers, dimensions and links. We felt that our intervention as designers and communicators should not try to translate the contents and themes of the exhibitions hosted by CIAJG into a graphic form, but rather to make room for the different artists and artworks to be contained and potentiated in a visual structure. Representation should be replaced with connection. We wanted the reasoning behind each curatorial choice to be visible.
The building's architecture plays an important role in the experience of visiting this museum. Different floors act as different exhibition containers, and the visitor should relate to distinct intentions as he / she moves around the place. There is a constant dialogue between the artworks and the place where they are displayed, reinforced by a sense of navigation through white space. We wanted this exploration of physical depth to be felt.
We designed an identity with a strong personality. Its strength comes from its simplicity, in the way its visual structure allows for content to speak by itself. It is raw, it is linked and connected, it is multidimensional. It shows the invisible by making room for the visible.
1. The Building
2. The identity
We've printed some silkscreen versions of the posters for ourselves. :)
Outdoor communication displays the system working on both horizontal and
vertical layouts. The design is not trying to set the tone of the exhibitions, but rather suggesting the ways by which the artworks are connected and displayed
throughout space.
4. Programme Newspaper
We have also designed an exhibitions programme in newspaper format. Again, white space is king, and the visuals are set on a low tone. We have resourced to a calm tension between images and type set on white boxes to add some spacial depth to this format, without compromising its etherial and light feel.
5. Pre-Website
While the museum is in the process of collecting and organising a complete digital archive of their estate, we have designed a pre-website where their exhibition and cultural programmes can be communicated.
