Graphics for the Open City Biennial
How can we create a visual image for Barcelona’s first Open City Biennial of Thought? How can we create an effective communication campaign? Doing so wasn’t easy, but it was inspiring. In the l’Apòstrof kitchen, Barcelona was transformed into a huge collage of imagined and possible cities. Light, dialogue and—above all—fringes were used to form the heart of our proposal.
The graphic identity of the Biennial was inspired by the great Italo Calvino and his invisible cities (Le città invisibili), as well as by the Archigram vanguard and its call to transform cities.
Besides producing graphic elements –things like illuminated posters, banners, bus advertisements, LEDs or advertising columns– and filling streets and squares, l’Apòstrof also created the logo for the Open City Biennial and designed and produced television advertisements, videos and a website.
As suggested by Italo Calvino, we imagined cities that were continuous, hidden, subtle, lofty, built of desire and memory, semantic… cities that are hidden, but that nevertheless exist in someone’s mind!
Thought can be found out in the open, in every corner of the city, inside and outside of homes and bars, in streets and squares; thought means words and dialogue.