For the past 30 years, Kissinger Sommer has been the cultural figurehead not only of the town of Bad Kissingen, but of the entire region. The music festival of international prominence is a social hotspot as well as a promotional and cultural hallmark. Unsurprisingly, its renown and its recognition by artists and visitors have been growing constantly. The genius loci and the unique ambience in Bad Kissingen form a symbiosis with the bold artistic capabilities of the hosts, the musicians, and the audience, guaranteed to create unforgettable experiences. Though, its brand and appearance had not fully kept up with the gain in eminence and were somewhat limited in capitalizing on this powerful union.
The task was therefore to develop an appearance for Kissinger Sommer that does justice to the uniqueness of the festival in a fully-fledged, state-of-the-art design, and yet to remain true to the overall face of the town. Working together with the brand managers of the festival and the town, we lived up to this challenge at all levels. For example, the font we used in the wordbrand visibly responds to that of Bad Kissingen, but thanks to its delicately emphasized serifs, also plays on the elegance of the music. We broke the classical stringence of the font by replacing the stems of specific characters with lines in the style of a musical score, thus not only adding rhythm to the textual appearance but also giving it visual reminiscence to music. The subtle lines from the logo of the town itself are also included, but more musically curved and evoking images of sound waves or the strings on an instrument. The lively spectrum of summer colours was developed from the design in Bad Kissingen’s visual media, which is based on each of the four seasons. Along with the modern photography, this creates a confident appearance that highlights the international significance of the festival to the same extent as the organic connection with the town of Bad Kissingen.
Client: Town of Bad Kissingen
Services: Research, analysis, workshops, brand strategy, brand character, brand positioning, brand architecture, corporate identity, communication plan, guidelines, storytelling, text, corporate and editorial design, implementation, brand activation, change management, stakeholder presentations
www.kissingersommer.de
Winner – German Design Award 2018