A layered design approach. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something remixed into something flexible.

Organization/brand level
Based on the decisions we made last year, we have defined the design on this most simple level. It is the content, the people and everything else that makes PICNIC into PICNIC. So PICNIC will be simple, no fuzz black and white, unless printed on a colored background. An identity with some rules, and a lot of freedom: a part that is the brand, and a part that will nicely blend.
This will consist of the logo (heart+PICNIC), VAG typeface, a simple and clear illustration style, no colors but the colors of materials itself like paper, wood, card board, basic honest materials, recycled paper. Basic stuff.
This will also mean that the website will be fairly simple regarding design. We’ll use existing patterns and make them PICNIC where they don’t interfere with usability. The site itself is also about the content, that should color the site. We’ll introduce badges for the different levels of user engagement, statuses of partner- and/or sponsorships, game elements and more. This way we can bridge the virtual with real life, creating nice mix of fun and functionality.

PICNIC City
PICNIC Festival 2011 will be about ‘Urban Futures’. We decided that because of that, the festival should manifest itself as a true city. It should be what the topic is about, and it will because of that also be a prototype place for new ideas on urban futures, not solely a festival terrain. To create a city feeling, we have developed a city style, just as a real city. With the heart as a starting point we’re building a fresh new heraldic city style that we can use like we send it from the PICNIC City Hall. The heart turned out to be a great base to create a shield from. Together with colors and symbols we introduced last year, it all adds up to a shield where every color and shape has a meaning, meanwhile creating a distinctive style for the city. This basic communication layer will be applied to connect and communicate everything regarding the festival. The colors and symbols are be connected to tracks and will help guide you through the city in all media, from app to paper to routing on site.

PICNIC Festival 2011 visual culture
On top of the PICNIC Festival need to’s, type designer Andreas Johansen from Copenhagen enriched the VAG family for us, with ‘city’ in mind as a theme. Which led to several VAG versions that feel like LED lights, light bulbs, neons, and more. All different, but based on the basic PICNIC typography, so still recognizable. All of the above will led to a basic toolkit that we send out to hand picked leading designers and agencies in our international networks, who we ask to make artwork for us in the form of ‘posters’ (both vertical and horizontal for screen based applications). Posters we can use in several ways, from decoration on site (poster walls like in real cities, but then all related to PICNIC Festival), online as backgrounds for the website or announcing separate themes, workshops or speakers, for media and even the visual speaker announcements during the festival. This will lead to a highly diverse and eclectic visual language that will bring the city to life. We start from the overarching theme ‘Urban Futures’ and from there go to the sub themes to eventually speakers once we have confirmed names.