The Venice Pavilion invited our studio to contribute as an artist. The biennale’s theme of this year was FAKE NEWS among other topics from the interesting times we live in.

We are no artists, but we believe in graphic design as a strong tool, so we developed an identity for the venice pavilion, which could be seen to be the identity of the whole Biennale and therefore is aligned with the concept of the Biennale, it also creates the maximum awareness for the pavilion of venice.

The center piece of our concept was the Lion of St. Mark, the symbol of Venice. Bureau Borsche created a reduced, abstract form of the lion to highlight the six boroughs of Venice in the lines of his wings. These simple geometric shapes were also used to create the secondary graphical element – an exclusive typeface.

This consists of mainly vertical bars in reference to the omnipresent poles throughout Venice. The popping neon yellow is a modern interpretation of the golden ornaments of the historical center.

Functionally, the color is used as a signal color because of its special visibility.

Biennale Di Venezia Shop Installation

Together, the lion, the typeface, and the spot color create a strong and yet ironically confusing guiding system for the city – ultimately leading to the pavilion of Venice.

The graphical system is applied on many elements like signs, posters, flags, and public transport etc. At the same time there will be several take-away items such as apparel, tennis balls, plastic bags or lighters referring to the city's strong tourist business.

All these items are branded the same way and reveal their connection to the Venice pavilion once the visitor arrives at the pavilion.

Our biggest aim is to involve the people of Venice to be part of that concept, they either get these items provided by the pavilion for their own use, make their own souvenirs, or they can download the graphic for free to create their own product.

Curators for the Venice pavilion:
Stelios Kois, Alessandro Gallo

Exhibitors:
Sidival Fila, Fabio Viale, Ferzan Özpetek, Plastique Fantastique, Lorenzo Dante Ferro, Mirko Borsche, Giorgos Koumendakis