Layered_Ural Music Night

Ural Music Night is Russia’s greatest music event that takes place in the heart of the Ural region. It takes 1 night, 200,000 visitors, 2,000 musicians, 100 official and 100 non-official venues, 50 music genres and 1 identity for everything.

The task was to design an original unified ad poster for 100 concerts. The ad poster was supposed to be recognizable for every venue even if there were 20 bands playing in one place and 1 headliner in some other place. The design had to be appropriate for the Opera theatre, a post-punk band and a trendy DJ.

In order to visually integrate all genre diversity in one festival, the designers developed a transformer identity.

UralMusicNight logo changes its character depending on the musical genre. There is an image of a street ad poster taken as the basis for the identity – where different posters overlap each other, where artists, events, genres hurry to change each other.

Every ad poster seems to be assembled from pieces of different posters, and paper contours remind us of the easily recognized silhouettes of the Ural Mountains.

Blocks of the ad poster are informative as well: the main upper part is about the festival, the middle one is about the venue, the lower part tells about the musicians and headliners. One of the tasks was to develop a series of patterns for brand carriers that would help the venue to create unique ad posters, leaflets and souvenirs on their own, while preserving the original style of the festival. We made it happen.

100 venues were branded with unique ad posters. Performance programs, leaflets, souvenirs (T-shirts and mugs) were designed and printed for a few thousand guests. Every venue customized their pattern and did it great. The ready materials corresponded to the goal – they were bright, original, informal and readable.

Anyone can visit and perform at the event, as taking part in it is free. The organizers create every ad poster on their own using the pattern. It was crucial to create a brand style that would later start living its own independent life.

The dynamic image of hastily torn posters is understandable for anybody who is trying to follow music events. The contours of the ad poster pieces create the recognizable silhouette of the Ural Mountains. This is a reminder of the place where the project takes place and of the fact that the festival is informal.