Geraes, the Festival — building the identity for a unique event
Scope: Branding, Visual Identity, Brand Applications, Tone of Voice.
Geraes is a forró music and dance festival in Santana do Riacho, in between the mountains of the state of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. I was gifted the mission to create the visual identity which would put Geraes on the map: in the state, in Brazil and in the world.
Creating the Geraes brand is thinking symbiosis between event, place, and people. I wanted to translate a feeling: being in nature, being in dance, being in music, being in communion, being home. How can we make people feel this without being there?I really wanted to encapsule the essence of the festival experience into a simple visual idea. So I set out to create some iconic visual language to do that. For this brand positioning project, I partnered with designer colleague and industry expert Antonio Avelar.
“Pé-na-terra”
It literally means "foot on the earth". A huge concept in forró dance, which can be danced barefoot and invites a grounded attitude. Inspired by the concept, I started to visualize the brand the old-fashioned way: brush and paint on paper. From a series of studies on the shape, I arrived at this one.
Organic, natural, and full of flow, the logo is inspired by the mountains of Minas Gerais and has the colors of Brazil.The calligraphic typography is unique, hand drawn, and non-rigid in typographic rules — it makes reference to the weight variations found in graphic manifestations of the Brazilian northeast region culture (the birthplace of forró), while it reflects the movement in dance and music.
Brand Colors
The Minas mountains against the backdrop of a crisp, clean, light-abundant sky at early morning hours and golden hour inspired this palette of greens supported by coral and purple.
Brand Font
Golos Text (Medium)
Photography
Location:
Drone photography, depicting the rich nature and lush trees of the mountain region of Minas Gerais. Taken in daytime with soft light, mainly early morning or golden hour for the warm glow. The mood is idyllic and evokes home, calm, protection from mother nature.People:
Portrait photography, depicting people or groups of people in motion, dancing, smiling, socializing, in tranquility and joy. Natural looks, with minimal production and in nature, outdoors, well lit with natural light. Scene:
Portrait photography, preferably using depth of field, depicting scenes that take place at the festival and which portray the overall mood of excitement, joy, motion. Spontaneous moments, with minimal production and in nature, outdoors, well lit with natural light.
These photographs are all AI-generated, using Midjourney.