New visual profile reflects 60 years of festival and design history
Kongsberg Jazzfestival marks this year's 60th anniversary with a new visual profile. It draws inspiration from the festival's unique design history, which will also be exhibited during the anniversary year.
Smuss Studio almost sounds like a band we could book for Energimølla or Smeltehytta. The design agency is behind Kongsberg Jazzfestival's revitalized graphic profile.
- The main goal has been to create a loud and playful visual profile with inspiration from the past, but with a fresh expression that works well both in 2024 and the following years, says Jørgen Brynhildsvoll, who together with partner William Stormdal started up Dirt Studio in 2022.
An agency with cultural capital
The design duo is based in an old shop in Rathkes gate on Grünerløkka in Oslo, and is well versed in music, literature and pop culture. This is also reflected in their work: on the shelf in the office are both vinyl records and books with Smuss covers. Smuss also designed Litteraturhuset's new website. And much more. But Kongsberg Jazzfestival is the first festival on the customer list.
- We have always wanted to work with a festival. It's an exciting assignment, because there are so many formats the design will be used in, says Brynhildsvoll.
Shall color the city
The Kongsberg Jazz Festival was organized for the first time in 1964, and is an institution in Norwegian cultural life. The festival has a very varied target audience - the program includes everything from the very narrowest of improvised jazz, via modern jazz that flirts with other genres, to commercial pop artists who create a folk party.
- Kongsberg Jazz Festival is both a city festival and a genre festival with a strong identity. You will color the city, and you will manage important Norwegian music and festival history. In addition, it is the 60th anniversary of the festival, which makes it a little extra grand, says Brynhildsvoll.
Festival director Ragnhild Menes thinks the same.
- It has been incredibly inspiring to get to know the guys in Smuss and follow the process. Not least, it has been fun to see with what enthusiasm and dexterity they have gone into our festival history to create a new visual identity. We wanted a graphic profile that reflected the festival's unique personality and history. It should express that we are proud of what we have been, what we are and what we will be in the future, explains Menes.
Iconic logo
Smuss Studio are self-proclaimed typography nerds. Which brings us to a central piece of Kongsberg Jazzfestival's design history: the festival logo from 1971.
- The Kongsberg Jazz Festival logo has iconic qualities. The font that the word "jazz" is in is Cooper Black, a late 60's typeface that in itself represents music and pop culture, it has proper New York vibes and is also the font on the cover of "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys.
The logo is lifted up and forward in the new graphic profile.
- The use of the logo has been toned down quite a bit in recent years, and has been somewhat confined to its circle. We've let it loose, blown it up, maybe even exaggerated it a bit. We have allowed ourselves to use it in repetitive patterns, almost like a rhythm. And it's a nod to the festival's design history, which used the logo much more as an eye-catcher in the 70s.
Kongsberg Jazz also has two "festivals within the festival", each of which has its own sub-profile. To the children's festival Barnivalen illustrator Ole-Magnus Saxegaard has created an animated orchestra of mascots, while the niche evening Særingfest has acquired a darker and more introverted expression.
Cultivating the festival iconography
William Stormdal sees the work on a new graphic profile for the Kongsberg Jazz Festival as an almost retro-futuristic mission.
- There is a lot of gold in the poster archive, especially the design expressions from the 70s and 80s are very powerful and strong. But we didn't want to create a pastiche either, it's more about using the festival's design history as a kind of defibrillator, changing something and at the same time adding new years. The result is a modern design that can be further refined in the future, while at the same time it has clear inspiration from the past, Stormdal believes.
The new blue main color is, for example, inspired by the poster from the festival's 10th anniversary, while repetition of the logo was a graphic element on the festival poster in 1988. On the meeting table at Smuss Studio, they have laid out some poster highlights from history.
- That's how I fall in love with graphic design when I see the 1971 poster, the first year the logo as we know it now was used. That poster is pure iconography. An extreme macro shot of a lit match. Completely clean, black and white. But what worked in 1971 doesn't necessarily work in 2024, so it's more about taking the ethos that the 1971 poster expresses into today's design.
Poster history exhibition
In addition to creating a new festival profile, the deep dive into Kongsberg Jazzfestival's design history will also materialize in the form of an exhibition at Grafill in Oslo in the autumn, specifically from 18 October to 24 November.
The aim here is to exhibit all posters, in addition to photos and various memorabilia and effects that have been part of the jazz festival's history and public appearance. And of course music and events in connection with the exhibition, including listening to old, previously unreleased sound recordings with big jazz names that are now safely preserved in the National Library's archives.
- We have been working together for several years now national Library about documenting and digitizing the festival's archive. The aim is to eventually be able to make more of the festival's history available to the public. The exhibition at Grafill in the autumn will be a way of making this history visible. As a nearly 60-year-old jazz festival, we not only manage music history, but also design history, says festival director Ragnhild Menes.
- It will be great fun to be able to show everything together in a curated form. It should be interesting both for those who have seen these posters and had a relationship with the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in their youth, and younger music and design enthusiasts who can gain an inspiring insight into this wonderful and unique Norwegian festival history, says Jørgen Brynhildsvoll in Smuss Studio.
