La Biennale de Montréal,

Defining Its Mission

By: BDM - Mar 05, 2014

 

 

La Biennale de Montréal, a new artistic organization promoting the biannual event BNLMTL, has commissioned the graphic design studio Uniform (1f.ca) to create its corporate identity and communication tools.
 
The mission of La Biennale de Montréal is to foster, support, interpret and disseminate the latest visual arts practices, while raising the international profile of Montréal as a destination of choice for contemporary art. Building on this mission, Uniform has drawn inspiration from the organization’s artistic vision—conveyed by four key terms: experimentation, agility, rigour and openness—to develop the graphic identity of La Biennale de Montréal.
 
The new organization’s logo revisits the event’s former signature, building on typography and maintaining the juxtaposition of the letters BNL and MTL. The font was refined. The black was replaced by a luminous but neutral grey. Vibrant colours complete the organization’s visual identity and accentuate the rhythm of the informative content, which plays on the idea of a list. These six colours unfold in a temporal sequence.
 
The website of La Biennale de Montréal (bnlmtl.org) follows the same sequential logic, while condensing the complete colour sequence to correspond to a browsing cycle. The site’s design and programming were entrusted to the multidisciplinary studio Bureau Principal (bureau-principal.com). To respect the graphic concept, Bureau Principal created a simple layout in which the available surface is used to its full potential, regardless of the size of the screen. The site’s construction is grounded on simplicity, on the luminosity of the grey and white, and on a harmonious balance between text and image.
 
Finally, the talented John Londoño (john-londono.com) photographed the members of the team, whose portraits can be seen at bnlmtl.org.
 
La Biennale de Montréal gratefully acknowledges the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Conseil des arts de Montréal.