2020 marked the 250th birthday of one of the most influential musician of all time, Ludwig Van Beethoven. To celebrate his legacy of music, a series of events was organized by San Francisco State University. The school commissioned me to build a brand identity to promote the programming.

This was a semester-long celebration entitled Beethoven & Modernity. I drew inspiration for the design through the program title, and wanted to show the enduring and vital influence of Beethoven in modern time. A melding of a classical font type with a fresh interpretation of composition.

The initial task was to weed out the essential elements that needed to be showcased on the logo/ logotype. This process involved gathering opinions from my clients and boiled down to four elements: "LvB", "250th", "1770", and "2020"; with heavy emphasis for the name acronym "LvB".

I started off playing around with the elements to see how these different components can interact with each other. It was important to acknowledge the needed balance between the modern and a more classic details given the aim of the music event.

Above are different iterations from my brainstorming phase. In laying out varying concepts I saw a connection between the clean composition and the playful touch of negative-positive space and proceeded with a monotype look.

The final logotype (violet) consisted of modified Lust Script letters stacked together to create a harmoniously flow. The "year" details were rearranged and changed to a san serif to help with legibility when produced on a smaller scale. The left cut-out on number "0" in "250th" was a deliberate decision to avoid confusion of mistaken that for letter "C" or a degree symbol when read from a far. Altogether, it made up a piece that is bold, yet intricate and fluid; an essence I hope to capture of the talented musician.