Club des D.A identity and website

Le Club des D.A, written out fully “directeurs artistiques”, is the French variant of the Art Directors Club. The association was founded in 1967/1968 with the target to defend the rights of the creative industries, to further the education of new generations, and to foster friendly competition between agencies through an annual design contest. The latter brought forth the fruit of an archive on more than fifty years of French design history.

And of course the Club des D.A is meanwhile itself an object of communication design. While the annual contest and the resulting year book may take on a fresh look every year, the stable house style in place was established in 2019/2020.

There are three main agents of the visual identity. The red circle holds the stylized letters A C and D that allow for different readings, “Art Directors Club” as much as “Club des Directeurs Artistiques”. It is combined with a logotype that spells out the French version. Note that after the last A one would expect another period. The logotype is set from PVC Banner Ultra, designed by Hélène Marian and published by Paris-based type foundry Production Type in 2018. Banner is one of four members of the larger PVC family in which each member explores a different extreme in type design.

The third element of the house style is the typeface Dr, a curious geometric sans serif with deliberately idiosyncratic solutions. It was designed by Bureau Brut and published by Production Type in 2017. It plays the main role on the website of the Club des D.A (which was conceived by 84.Paris and executed by Bwat) and is combined there with Lineto’s LL Circular by Laurenz Brunner.