Violaine & Jérémy and Anna Kovecses collaborate on this refined identity for a Paris theatre

Paris-based studio Violaine & Jérémy has created a new visual identity for the 2017/2018 season of the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. The studio has worked with the institution since 2015 and this year’s identity is inspired by imagining the theatre as a person and what that character would see when travelling through Paris.

Each year, Violaine et Jérémy work with a different illustrator to help refresh the updated identity. “We found Anna Kovecses’ illustrations were the perfect representation of city life around the theatre: people at a cafe, the reflection of light in the water, people going to the market with exotic fruits,” explains the studio. “We are 100% colour-compatible. She uses colours that perfectly fit into our universe. But the main reason is more about perspective – we wanted to represent some quite common situations we needed someone with a different point of view. That’s what we like the most with Anna’s illustrations : you don’t get the image at first sight because of the angle or the level of the drawing.”

The illustrations have been applied to programmes and posters and sit harmoniously next to the custom typeface the studio created for the project. “This year, we drew a serif with different glyphs for some of the letters. It’s a nice tool for us to bring variations into the posters. We named it Traviata in reference to Verdi’s work and because the play has been programmed for the second year in a row (it’s an amazing play).”

Violaine & Jérémy’s identity is elegant, thoughtful composed and offers an alternative snapshot of the surrounding landscape. “We want to offer a different imagery in the city because we are surrounded by advertising images that rarely flirt with beauty and sensibility,” says the studio. “We would love people to become more and more aware about what is graphic design, typography, contemporary illustration and the huge range of possibility they offer.”