Role: Brand Designer · Visual identity (delivered) · Website and social concepts
Role: Brand Designer · Visual identity (delivered) · Website and social concepts
Daydreams — Brand Identity
01 / Project goal
Design a visual identity for an early-cinema research archive of 2,500+ films.
01 / Project goal
Design a visual identity for an early-cinema research archive of 2,500+ films.
02 / What needed to change
Without an identity, the archive looked like a technical catalogue. Nothing in it spoke of the era it preserves, and little invited in anyone beyond specialists — students, curious viewers, early-cinema enthusiasts. The brief named the feeling the brand should create: wonder at early cinema. My task was to give that feeling a form.
02 / What needed to change
Without an identity, the archive looked like a technical catalogue. Nothing in it spoke of the era it preserves, and little invited in anyone beyond specialists — students, curious viewers, early-cinema enthusiasts. The brief named the feeling the brand should create: wonder at early cinema. My task was to give that feeling a form.
03 / Finding the meaning
I started with the era, not with trends. Early films didn’t so much tell stories as bring book illustrations to life — scenes were often staged straight from book graphics. That became the idea of living canvases. Pathé was one of the first companies to bring films to the Russian Empire, and its emblem was a rooster greeting the rising sun — a symbol of morning for the moment cinema arrived. Together they became the concept: Dawn of a new era.
03 / Finding the meaning
I started with the era, not with trends. Early films didn’t so much tell stories as bring book illustrations to life — scenes were often staged straight from book graphics. That became the idea of living canvases. Pathé was one of the first companies to bring films to the Russian Empire, and its emblem was a rooster greeting the rising sun — a symbol of morning for the moment cinema arrived. Together they became the concept: Dawn of a new era.
04 / The identity
The logo has two parts that work together or apart. The film-strip rooster is Pathé’s rooster redrawn as a silhouette inside a frame of film: the film is cinema, the rooster and the dawn are the beginning of a new era. It has two poses, at rest and crowing, so the mark can come alive — like the living canvases early films once were. The wordmark is hand-styled lettering based on Bodega Serif, set in a double frame like an art-deco title card, in English and Russian. Colour and type come from the archive itself: wine, gold, sepia, sage and the warm tone of old paper. Cormorant Garamond carries the voice of the era; Inter keeps long research texts easy to read.
04 / The identity
The logo has two parts that work together or apart. The film-strip rooster is Pathé’s rooster redrawn as a silhouette inside a frame of film: the film is cinema, the rooster and the dawn are the beginning of a new era. It has two poses, at rest and crowing, so the mark can come alive — like the living canvases early films once were. The wordmark is hand-styled lettering based on Bodega Serif, set in a double frame like an art-deco title card, in English and Russian. Colour and type come from the archive itself: wine, gold, sepia, sage and the warm tone of old paper. Cormorant Garamond carries the voice of the era; Inter keeps long research texts easy to read.
05 / Outcome
The client received the logo and the visual identity. The archive now has a recognisable face that belongs to its era, not to a generic database. To show how the identity could live beyond the logo, I extended it into two self-initiated concepts: a website and a social media system. What I take from this project: an identity for a historical subject starts with research, not with style. The meaning was already in the archive — I only had to find it.
05 / Outcome
The client received the logo and the visual identity. The archive now has a recognisable face that belongs to its era, not to a generic database. To show how the identity could live beyond the logo, I extended it into two self-initiated concepts: a website and a social media system. What I take from this project: an identity for a historical subject starts with research, not with style. The meaning was already in the archive — I only had to find it.
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading
If this kind of product thinking feels useful for your product, project or team, I’d be happy to talk.
Work with me →
Thanks for reading
If this kind of product thinking feels useful for your product, project or team, I’d be happy to talk.
Work with me →