Silva Major 22
Creative strategy, naming, art direction, motion design, signage, social media, webdesign
Project done with Elise Botrel
2022
Silva Major is a classical music festival based in the Entre-Deux Mers region, with a focus on the Sauve Majeur area. Led by a group of organ lovers, the festival wanted to adopt an identity to stand far from preconceived ideas about classical music, in order to attract a wider, namely younger, audience. Far from being confined to concert halls, Silva Major handpicks the region’s exceptional venues: abbey, churches, quarries… It was with these concerns in mind that we designed the visual identity of this atypical event, from the naming of the festival to its website, including the numerous printed material.
The name refers to the forest on which the city was founded, and the reference to the major notes already sounded self-evident. By avoiding the words ‘festival’ or ‘music’, we created an event devoid of any symbolism, giving way to fresh, intriguing images to attract the attention of the audience.
We came up with a system of modular compositions using sans serif typography and 3D elements – a contemporary reinterpretation of the notes and pauses borrowed from music sheets. To underline the graphic rhythm of the different compositions, we chose to work mainly in black and white, while occasionally adding solid areas of orange and blue to contrast and highlight certain aspects. Finally, for the website, we opted for a simple and immersive navigation with large video banners showing extracts from the concerts as well as some solid color zones to structure the pages.
