Les Vibrants Défricheurs
Poster staging the Vibrants Défricheurs’ logotype, enriched with illustrations. The logotype is indeed a lettering piece based on Origin Super Condensed Black and its Backslant version. It’s playful and lively with a jumping baseline, upside-down letters and custom fancyful ligatures. Find a version without illustrations further below.
The name of this artist’s collective based in Rouen, France, is hard to translate. While everyone will understand vibrant, the verb défricher can mean to make land arable by clearing wood, but also to prepare for a bigger task, to lay ground for something.
With this in mind, one understands better the complex mission stated by the associations’ adherents, ranging from musicians to performing and visual artists to technicians and volunteers. Cross-over, improvisation and the fusion of artistic disciplines is at the very heart of their work. They aim at reaching out to the most diverse audiences with their events and are committed to their local community, organizing projects at schools and in hospitals. Apart from that, the Vibrants Défricheurs founded their own music label called Label Vibrant.
In this post you get to see various graphic design projects directed by Julien Lelièvre since 2016, from logotype to CD sleeve. What they have in common is the mix of two sans-serif typefaces released by Production Type: Origin Super Condensed, sporting a back-slanted italic, and Gemeli Micro, characterized by its pronounced inktraps.
A first glance at the leaflet presenting the association and its projects, at the print shop. Unfolded, the cover can serve as a poster.
Inside the leaflet the projects are featured. The headlines are set in Origin Super Condensed Black, the reading text uses Gemeli Micro.
Cover of the folded leaflet, using two styles of Gemeli Micro
CD sleeve for Isles, the debut album of the band YOU, published by Label Vibrant, featuring different styles of Origin Super Condensed.
Catalog presenting the projects of Les Vibrants Défricheurs, realized in two Pantone colors with a ring binding, and featuring another illustrated version of the logotype
Shown in the upper left corner is the logotype without intertwined illustrations.
As a graphic principle, the descriptive text (left) uses Origin Super Condensed for the headline and Gemini Micro for continuous reading, set left-aligned. To the right a composition made from a photograph, an illustration and large letters from Origin which are partly obscured by the imagery.
The sense of lecture is not in spreads but recto-verso: titles on the right announce the project that is described on the following left page. The tall shapes of Origin Super Condensed have been elongated even further for “YOU” – Origin Hyper Condensed?
Poster advertising a concert of Papanosh, one of the association’s projects. An illustrative chart is being inserted into the counter of the O, giving the rotated word a three-dimensional look.
Brochure for Le Percé Plafond, a project mixing sound and image projection. The artists perform in hospitals to brighten up the patients’ day. The words on the cover are arranged in various orientations around the circular die cut.
Brochure for Le Percé Plafond with a circular die cut in the front cover, revealing the illustration on the page below
Interior pages from the brochure for Le Percé Plafond, with text set in Gemeli Micro
Back cover of the brochure for Le Percé Plafond
