For St. Pölten’s application to become European Capital of Culture 2024 we designed the first Bid Book and with it a custom-made graphical system to create graphics and animations.

All graphics in the book including the cover and animations were produced with a graphic design system specially developed for the purpose. Each image is a snapshot of a generative animation process. Three coloured basic elements orbit a common centre while growing, shrinking and continually reconfiguring themselves. The constant change of perspective alters their equidistance and establishes new relationships between them: as the elements connect, they produce new colour transitions; they conflate into surfaces which then decompose into clouds of dots, always linked by their common orbit.

Find more information on our website and on Instagram.

Why, of all cities, would St. Pölten – which, for some Austrians, is synonymous with all that is provincial and mediocre – apply to become European Capital of Culture 2024? This is a question we have been asked constantly. The answer: because this city has the potential, because the local population is fully committed, and because it offers ideal conditions for rescaling distances between opposites and contradictions. Our aim: to develop St. Pölten into a role model for a livable mid-sized European city in the centre of Europe!

You can download a PDF of the book via the offical website st-poelten2024.eu.

To give you an overview of what’s possible with our tool, here’s a video showing off some of its functionality. At any given point in time you can pause the animation and export high resolution graphics, ready for print or even a series of still frames for animations.

Creative Direction, Technical Direction, Design
Martin Grödl and Moritz Resl

Editorial Design
Gerhard Jordan

Editorial team & St. Pölten 2024 Office
Michael Duscher, Albrecht Grossberger, Bernadette Gugerell, Jakob Redl, Carolin Riedelsberger

Print
Gugler GmbH

Client
NÖ Kulturlandeshauptstadt St. Pölten GmbH