dFrost is the annual design and cultural festival hosted by the National Institute of Design, R&D Campus, Bangalore. Its aim is to move away from the more commonly seen ‘college festival’ to become a platform where innovators from different fields engage in thought-provoking conversations to bring multiple disciplines together.
The branding for this project was undertaken by our team, which worked in tandem with the website and installation teams.
(With Akshay Khurana, Ankita Mitra, Santhoshram Ekambaram Narayanan and Suraj Barthy.)
Approach
The first question: 'What does dFrost stand for?'.
Our discussions led to ideation for a visual identity that did not restrict its language at the very start.
Concept
We took our inspiration from artwork by team member and fellow student at NID, Suraj Barthy.
The campus became a vortex — a whirlpool pulling in people, ideas, events and performances, with all their vibrant energies and colours. The concept intended to enrich the otherwise evenly spaced and predictable reality we experience, making it surreal and otherworldly. This new, unexplored territory set the stage for evolution, trails to be blazed, and the development of new perspectives.
Visual Identity
The tagline for dFrost ’17 was finalised as ‘Beyond The Event Horizon’.
The logo had to be dynamic and engaging for this theme. The play of positive and negative space, and the use of neon colours, turned the volatility of the logo into the foundation for the visual language of the festival.
Print Media
Print media for the event included posters that were displayed at university campuses in Bangalore, a newspaper advertisement for The Hindu, and banners that aided wayfinding on campus.
The posters for dTalks (lec-dems and presentations by design experts) and dLabs (workshops by experienced professionals) followed the triangular, slightly off-kilter language of the brand.
Digital Media
The layout for the website was kept simple, with all the information on one page, available over a few scrolls. The website, too, took motifs from the logo to aid rhythmic user interface.
Social media posts across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube ensured a similar dFrost ’17 brand linkage.
Every touch point for the two-day event was designed to be dynamic, keeping in mind the live-wire atmosphere that we wanted to maintain over it.
Wayfinding
The banners and signage were colour-coded for ease in exploring the campus. Each colour was taken from the logo — pink for dTalks, teal for dLabs, purple for dGallery and white for dLounge.
Installations
The visual language also dictated the appearance of installations across event spaces, like a yarn-bombed backdrop, an archway at the entrance, and a canopy over the performance area.
Together, they enabled the adventurously creative environment at dFrost '17.
