Estúdio 017’s identity for Garde refuses to tie itself to one logo — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Garde is a non-profit foundation for contemporary art, fashion and cinema, based in Berlin and started by a collective of anonymous independent artists. Brazilian and Portuguese studio Estúdio 017 created its brand strategy, verbal identity, visual identity and editorial system ahead of its launch.

The founders wanted Garde to arrive with the presence of an established museum of art and fashion from the start, instead of opening as a small space and growing. Estúdio 017 was asked to give an institution with no public history an identity ready for exhibitions, curatorial programmes, publications, research and the preservation and documentation of visual culture from its first day. With the founders anonymous and no names to put forward, the brand alone has to stand for Garde’s authority and its voice.

The strategy, developed by Estúdio 017’s brand strategist Rafaela Barrense, starts from the idea that culture is always changing, and sets Garde up to connect disciplines, perspectives and periods through observation, research and open access to knowledge. The studio’s aim was an editorial, flexible and long-lasting visual language to support the strategy. “The founders are anonymous by choice. They belong to a generation of artists from the 2000s, when the internet was taking off, and many artists became known for their work while staying discreet,” Founder & Creative Director Wesley Freitas explains. “That anonymity creates a sense of mystery, and the verbal identity follows the same logic. Garde speaks discreetly and gives more attention to the art than to the brand itself. When the brand does need to appear, it appears with strength, and that is where the crimson red comes in.”

A deep crimson is the main colour, set against black-and-white photography and portraits. “The cursive logotype came from a sense of rebellion,” Freitas tells us. “From the start, we saw Garde as a countercultural brand that would never tie itself to a single logo.” The hand-drawn lowercase logotype is one of several forms of the name, alongside a ‘G’ on its own and a version written in a sans serif, so every scale has an option – from the full logotype in large headlines to the ‘G’ in the smallest details. Monotype’s Helvetica Now Display is the main typeface, giving Garde a clear and neutral base across exhibitions, publications and research, and Mea Culpa is an ornamental typeface for more decorative moments. “Because Garde is a countercultural brand, the system also leaves room to play with other typefaces when the context calls for it,” he adds.

Starting from seals and ornaments found in public-domain books on the Internet Archive, Estúdio 017 redrew a family of seals and marks for Garde, including laurel-wreath seals, an ornamental ‘G’ monogram and illuminated ‘G’ seals, where the letter is decorated like the opening initial of an old manuscript. The identity also includes invented cataloguing details, such as the line ‘Accession No. 1990.042’ embroidered on a T-shirt. “They borrow the language of museum collections to give Garde the feel of an institution with its own archive,” Freitas notes. The 1990 in the accession number is the birth year of one of the founders, who wanted the identity to include a reference to that year.

The illustrated dog that appears beside the logotype and on garments belongs to one of the founders, artists who often draw on personal references in their work, many of which go back to childhood. “Since the founders remain anonymous, the dog is one of the few personal traces of the people behind Garde that appears in the brand, and it is used with that weight in mind,” Freitas details.

The identity is applied to editorial spreads, printed cards, business cards, a tote bag and a key medallion, and to motion pieces that motion designer Pedro Henrique developed from Freitas’ design, with Pietro Rezende adding the motion effects. “The intention was for Garde to feel new while also carrying elements of older things,” Freitas concludes. “Motion was a way to bring those two sides together.”