RCA2021 Visual Identity
Who we are
Camille and Amir, two Graphic Designers on the Visual Communication programme collaborated together on the winning pitch for the RCA’s annual visual identity project.
RCA2021 was pitched to us in an unprecedented time, in the midst of a global pandemic the College had to reappraise how to create an Identity that represented an institution in flux.
Camille and Amir, although traditional Graphic Designers, used their ‘people focused’ and user first research practices at the core of their development and concept of the identity, to create a collaborative project that not only was a work based in their practices, but one in which they collaborated with the student body at large.
Our manifesto
To help us fully understand what the project meant to us, and to give us a grounding, a north star to reference every creative decision we made on the project, we wrote a manifesto, outlining the aims and aspirations, the trials and tribulations, and the contexts in which this project was born, and what it had to do to be successful and true to itself.
Work in Progress show
The identity theory was first put to the test for the Work in Progress 2021 Show, in which we wanted to represent the relationships and interactions of the RCA, the institution we all belong to and share and the individual students' voices constituting the community.
Interpretative translations of what a “Work in Progress” show meant to the students, provided by them in their mother tongue, were used to communicate personal perspectives and approaches towards the WiP show, these statements were revealed amongst an evolving and dynamic form, representing the experimental, fluid and equally dynamic nature of a WiP show.
The Work in Progress show, wip2021.rca.ac.uk launched in Jan 2021, and presented developing work from across the college.
RCA2021
Taking the fundamental elements that were the core of our identity we evolved onwards to the final show, still present was the base of the institution, our shared existence. As well as students’ voices, but this time instead of representing what a Work in Progress show means to them, we wanted to represent what it means to be at the end of the time at the RCA, what is it to be a student in the Final Show. These statements were revealed through objects acting as lenses, signaling the more clarified and crystalised final practices on show in the Graduate Exhibition. Our collaboration for the final show was further augmented by Sara Monacchi who helped us facilitate our wider reach and research into the student body, as we attempted to understand how we could represent the diverse student bodies’ works and practices in our identity.
Collaboration
Our Identity was firmly routed in collaboration, it would never have been able to work without the contributions of the student body, of which we wanted to represent in their truest and most authentic form. This project is a celebration of us, the hardships we have had to endure and overcome, and a representation of the diverse and exciting body of practitioners that we are.
Design Team
Amir Saidani (Visual Communication)
Camille Le Flem (Visual Communication)
Facilitation
Sara Monacchi (Service Design)