Creative-Blob
The Creative-Blob was the visual representation of the 2022 Bern Design Festival. The design fair takes place every two years. Designers from the disciplines of graphic design, interaction design, product design and illustration have the opportunity to exhibit and present their work here. During this time, the design festival also offers talks and workshops on the topics of design and creativity.
The 2022 edition featured a guest country for the first time, namely Finland, which enabled a varied exchange with Finnish designers.
The goal of the key visual was to create a highly recognizable motif that reflects the themes of the exhibition. The challenge was, on the one hand, to create a striking image that catches the eye and, on the other hand, it should have enough details that only become apparent on closer inspection.
The motif should work as a 3D animation on the screen and be used as a 3D visualization for print and communication media.
Wireframe
Der Prozess
The idea for the key visual did not arise from a flash of inspiration, but was developed in close cooperation between the core team of the design festival and Spacebar. The only framework that was clear from the start was that it should be a digital 3D illustration.
The first phase of finding ideas was primarily about the extended search for suitable keywords that revolve around the Design Festival Bern and define or even represent it. They should later be visible in the image either as concrete 3D objects or presented as abstract interpretations. For example: With the term product design, we chose objects that are widely used in the industry, such as a chair and a lamp. The concept of creativity was presented as a translucent mass from which the objects spring.
We placed the terms that were finally found in a narrow selection process in a diagram field made up of circles. Into these circles we inserted inspirational images in the way we could visualize each word. This procedure already created a first impression of the direction in which we wanted to go with the key visual.
In the end, the following two concepts won the race among the various ideas. Concept one was an organic mass from which ideas emerge and at the same time holds them together. In the second concept, a letter or a word should draw attention directly to the design festival. The design branches of the exhibition should be represented by flying objects, similar to concept one.
As can already be seen, after intensively weighing up the advantages and disadvantages, we decided on the first concept. But that wasn't the end of it. We wanted to push the concept even further by designing various variations of the creativity mass to exploit the potential of the idea. For this I primarily played with the materiality and structure of the surface. The designs ranged from marble to concrete to a solid covered with grass - just to name a few.
Visually, however, we still liked the gel-like mass best. Its translucent nature allowed the most to be read into it without having to choose and justify a specific material. Then it was about the development and fine-tuning of the 3D visualization. We had to answer questions like: How should the transparency work? How milky or clear should it be? How much should the surface reflect? Does the arrangement of the objects fit and do they come into their own? Just to list some of our thoughts.
For the final version, the transparent creative mass was set in motion and the objects were animated to dance.