Civic Sound Archive
Identity design
Web page & printed collaterals
Graphics for exhibition space
Hackney, London – 2022A social art project by the London based artist Moi Tran, Civic Sound Archive is a growing collection of home-made recordings, contributed by members of minority communities living in Britain and beyond. From music and poetry, to stories and soundtracks of childhood memory, the project uses audio to map personal experience.
I was commissioned by Tran to create graphics for the project's first exhibition at PEER gallery in Hackney. The outcome was a dynamic visual identity system that reflects the project's unique perspective.
An imperfect recording of a visual identity
The project “celebrates the joy of poor acoustics and fleeting sounds"—a unique aspect and an interesting characteristic that could be explored visually.
Paying homage to the perspective and methodology of the project, the identity was created in an analog way.With my document scanner, I manipulated the scanning process in real time to make different “imperfect" versions of a simple logo lockup.
Civic Sound Archive is a preservation of memories in sonic form. Each scan was a unique recording of the project's name, rendering a constellation of multiple tones and voices.
Individually and together, they all represented Civic Sound Archive as a collective act. A different version was used for each design asset in static formats.
The contribution of the community helped to define the project. To celebrate this the participant list became a primary element of the visual identity wherever possible. The participant list was designed to stylistically resemble a graphic equaliser sound wave, another subtle nod toward the subject matter of the exhibition.