ABC*-Festival
After finishing school, two friends (Kai Lietzke and Tilman Immisch) and me didnt have anything better to do. So we asked the Gängeviertel if we could organise a little art and music festival. A year later the first instant happened and got way bigger then it was initially meant to be.
We had over 3000 visitors counting all 3 events together. Had exhibition in 2 spaces and 2 floors with bands, live acts and DJs. Workshops, Talks and Performances throughout. Our original intent was to combine an art exhibit with a musical event but we quickly ran into problems with fire proofing, emergency exits and personal safety. Over the winter of 2020 we planned the next festival. We wanted to focus heavily on installations and live performance, as these were things we got interested in throughout the festival. The installations we had in the basement quickly became the main attraction so we thought: why not make the whole festival about this?
But then the pandemic happened, then our lifes happened and suddenly the festival ceased to exist after only 3 events. Visiting documenta 15 also got us questioning the way we organised and curated everything. The ABC*-Festival remained the starting point of many of our friends artistic endeavours. A favourite memory of all of us. And we are sure will one day return.
My original intend with the ABC* CI was to create a visually distinct look that would take away from the people, artworks and amazing photos by Konrad Laukat (our Instagram only displayed those photos, no graphics whatsoever as we wanted to show the vibe and energy at the festival). The first poster being a copy of a swissted.com poster I loved at that time, the second being a wild late night photoshop adventure with Tilman. It wasnt until the third event that we actually had something that could resemble a CI. The 3 shapes (circle, triangle and square, yes very Bauhaus, very overdone but hey, the resemled the letters a bit) where there from the start, the 3 main colors came shortly after. Not even being aware of RGB and CMYK the website caused eye cancer while the posters were more violet then blue.
During the winter of planning the next year I also started overhauling the CI. The website became readable, the colors more eye friendly, still digital first but now at least printable, the shaped became colored areas rather then 3D objects. I`m still pretty happy with these designs. Sadly they havent been used yet. But I updated our website and the logo on our website at least.