Studio Rally draws Sonic Cinema’s identity from sound and light — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Sonic Cinema designs and builds private home cinemas in Kuwait. For a rebrand rooted in the films, it went to local design practice Studio Rally, which created the identity, printed pieces and website. “We wanted the rebrand to shift the conversation away from speakers, projectors and technical specifications, and towards what the cinema is ultimately created for – the movies,” Sonic Cinema’s Bader Al Sabah tells us.

“After completing several projects, we began hearing the same reaction from our clients: watching a favourite film in their new cinema felt like experiencing it for the first time,” Al Sabah explains. “The technology created complete immersion, but what stayed with them was the feeling the film gave them. That made us realise that this had always been the real purpose of our work.” Sonic Cinema’s clients differ in taste but share a love of film. The company wants the first conversation to be about which movies a client loves and how they like to experience them. Film Club, a sub-brand, came out of that idea.

The primary Sonic Cinema lockup has the Arabic sitting above the Latin, which is a condensed sans serif typeface set on a shallow arc. “The Latin wordmark originates from Bebas Neue, but it was modified to follow the shape of the containing brand element – the wave-like structure that frames the logo,” Studio Rally’s Founder & Design Lead, Sara Al Dhubaib, tells us. “That containing shape itself follows the concept of sound and light beams radiating from the centre, which represents the screen. Rather than sitting on a straight baseline, the letters were adjusted to curve and slope in line with that geometry.” The Arabic is set in Ruq’ah, an expressive script associated with classic film titles and vintage Arabic movie posters, and it was lettered by hand before being digitised and cleaned up for the lockup. “Rather than forcing both onto a single shared baseline, each was allowed to follow its own rhythm, the grounded Latin type and the flowing Arabic script, while both remain anchored within the same overall wave-shaped frame,” Al Dhubaib adds.

Alongside the wordmark, and out of the same concept, the identity has a small rectangle with lines radiating out of it. “The fan of lines is drawn from the actual experience of being in a well-designed cinema, the way sound and light radiate outwards and fill the room,” Al Dhubaib explains. “It’s a visual translation of that sensation: the small rectangle at the centre acts as the source (the screen or the speaker point), and the lines fan outwards to represent sound and light travelling through the space towards the audience.” The fan has two forms, an outline and a solid, and the choice between them is made by the material and the production process. The solid tends to be used on tactile pieces and the outline on more graphic, diagrammatic layouts. The palette is the terracotta Neon Coral and the sand Hailey, with Black alongside them. “The sand tone sets the domestic tone, grounding the brand in the idea of home and everyday comfort,” Al Dhubaib notes. “The terracotta carries the excitement and energy of the cinema experience itself, while still pairing naturally with the sand. Black works as a versatile accent that pairs well with both, adding depth without disrupting the balance between the two.”

“The client specifically requested two separate logos that would still feel connected,” Al Dhubaib details. Film Club’s lockup follows the same structural language as the primary mark. It appears across the merchandise and the screening announcements, and the Sonic Cinema mark is reserved for official, client-facing and business touchpoints. The merchandise is a Movie Log notebook with a blank line on its cover for the owner to write their name, coasters and a woven blanket. The blanket has the solid fan across its full width, in two tones from the palette. There is no wordmark on it, so the fan stands in for the identity. “Thin strokes tend to soften or disappear once interlaced at scale, so a solid silhouette was the safer, stronger choice to keep the mark instantly recognisable,” Al Dhubaib explains. Film Club exists to screen classic films for cinephiles and to draw people into home cinema by letting them experience it first-hand. “Designing and building the cinema creates the space for the experience,” Al Sabah concludes. “The Film Club celebrates what happens inside it.”