Citadium department stores

In 2020, Large was commissioned with the new visual identity for the Citadium department stores, part of the French Printemps chain. Citadium offers medium to high-end clothing and is aimed at a young audience, who likes to wear trendy clothes and sportswear.

Taking this target into account, Large created an identity filled with pop references, using different symbols, pictograms, logotypes as a graphic vocabulary arranged into a digital patchwork. This reference to how images are stored, released, copied and pasted in our digital era leads up into a playful identity, where symbols are diverted from their initial meaning, creating a new kind of syntax (this is very much visible on Citadium’s Instagram account and on their website). In terms of typography, Signal from Production Type is linked to this explosion of codes, and is used for the logotype and as the primary brand typeface, exclusively in all caps. Citadium employs a wide palette of secondary fonts, several of which are sourced from the library of system fonts.

Signal’s design is based on the French highway signage typeface, and is therefore anchored in the public space, as a kind of contemporary epigraphy. What better counter balance to the diversity of digital culture assumed in the identity, for a store claiming an urban style? While the font matches conceptually, it’s also coherent to bring back legibility and a simplicity that comes along with the evidence of fashion. In the end, Large succeeds in creating an identity that is the reflection of the youth of the time.