The Maison de la Culture of Amiens, France, is the main cultural hub of that city for all sorts of events, from exhibitions to dance and drama. Julien Lelièvre is the graphic designer who, back in 2018, developed a new house style for this institution. Ever since he finds exciting and surprising derivations of the central theme for each season. This post is dedicated to the visual communication of the 2020/2021 season.
The cover variants of the program booklet play with the stark contrast of plain yellow and red, colors associated with danger, heat and action. The only graphic elements used are the Maison de la Culture logotype and the figures “2021”, both set in PVC Banner Ultra designed by Hélène Marian and published by Production Type. The typeface was developed with exactly this kind of use in mind: to maximally fill up the horizontal space.
Looking inside the brochure we see the way the pictures participate in the game of yellow and red: their lower half is systematically altered to a duotone look. The dividing spread “Hiver” uses a blury photograph, overdrawn with a digitally generated pattern, red on yellow.
In addition to PVC Banner, PVC Menu is used in the brochure as a titling face and the yet to be released Text version of Media Sans by Jean-Baptiste Levée in its Regular and Bold cuts for the longer reads.
Program booklet for September–December 2020, front and back cover
Program booklet for January–June 2021, front and back cover
Spread from the program booklet, with PVC Menu for headlines and Media Sans Text for the copy
Spread from the program booklet. PVC Banner is used for the page number and running title (“Danse”).
Spread from the program booklet, with PVC Banner Bold for “Hiver”
Cover of the advance program. The map marker reading “avec vous” (“with you”) features caps from Signal.
“Ouvert” – the MCA is open. The booklet with the program for spring/summer 2021 brought a change of colors, to blue and yellow.
Page from the interior with Incandescences, a play by Ahmed Madani
Page from the interior with Thélonius & Lola, a play for the whole family, staged by Zabou Breitman