Moving Identities
I was asked to do design a logo and create a visual style for an umbrella project about migration named Moving Identities by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in collaboration with the Goethe Institut, Institut français, and Danish Cultural Institute. It resulted in a dynamic logo that shows a literal migration of the identities.
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The Migration of the Letter ‘i’ ︎︎︎
In the final version of the logo design process, the different members of the letter ‘i’ have been incorporated into the logo. The link with the migration to different cultures is now complete.
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Clothing is an important aspect of our identities. I was very much inspired by an article by Dzvinka Stefanyshyn about how immigrants influence clothing.
“It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what it means to dress like a New Yorker because what does this type of fashion entail in the first place? In New York, known as the “melting pot” of cultures, each immigrant group attempts to retainin their traditions. Immigrants settled in particular neighborhoods in order to feel a sense of community of their old countries, and they even opened and expanded particular businesses that established ethnic niches. However, there is one commerce that has spanned across several immigrant groups, and that is the garment industry. Immigrants with limited knowledge of English and other skills turned to this industry as a source of income. With such an influx of immigrants, who provided cheap labor, America became reliant on production of clothing in the states (particularly New York). Since the early 1800s until the present, Germans, Irish, Russian Jews, Italians, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans all have impacted the clothing industry. Though each of the immigrant groups that worked in garment manufacturing did preserve their background in the domestic sphere, they all partook in the shaping of how Americans, but particularly New Yorkers dress. It is the economic and social forces that contributed to the employment of various immigrant groups in the garment industry, and they name New York as one of the world capitals of fashion.”
During my research of clothing and graphic language, I stumbled upon the beauty of the clothing pattern sheets that clothing makers use to cut parts of clothing with their matching sizes. Upon the first view, these abstract patterns also resemble a map. Here, I tried to emphasize this by making it look like a page out of an atlas by adding the letters and numbers on the sides and using matching earth and water tones. ︎︎︎
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Another idea for Moving Identities was to mix two flags and inverting the colors to create a new and unique flag/identity which happens also when a person migrates, my personal flag would be the Turkish flag mixed with the Dutch flag. when there is programming about a Japanese artist performing in Germany for example; the two flags can be combined. so the possibilities are endless and always delivering a unique image.
