Glasgow International 2020
Scotland’s largest festival for contemporary art, taking place over three weeks every two years across the city of Glasgow.
Renowned as a centre for contemporary art, the festival draws on the city’s strengths as a vibrant and distinctive centre of artistic production and display. Combining the characteristics of a visual arts biennial with an open submission model for artists and curators based in the city, Gi is a truly unique event in the European cultural calendar.
We first established the Glasgow International identity in 2018 which prominently featured the typeface Lacuna by GSA alumni Imogen Ayres. This time round we developed the identity in collaboration with Gabriella Marcella of Risotto Studio. Her striking, bold and playful abstract work was the perfect fit.
One of nine abstract tiles by Gabriella Marcella.
Once the colour palette was defined we tasked Gabriella with creating nine unique graphic tiles. Chopping, scaling, flipping and rotating the tiles gives us infinite random options with no two brand touchpoints ever being the same. The visual approach underpins the 2020 festival theme of Attention and rather than repurpose artist works and show them out of context the new identity almost becomes a piece of visual art in itself. For locals and visitors to the city it’s a welcome distraction to the endless visual landfill from social media and news feeds.
Gi Director Richard Parry announcing the new programme