Reflect: A Dynamic Brand Identity by Ice9 Interactive

Exploring the Ethos of Music Through Design Motifs Inspired by Rorschach Blots

Ice9 Interactive was inspired by the chaotic, evolving, and personal nature of music. The team sought to capture the self-reflective, momentary tales of music and represent them in design motifs. These motifs were then used as the fundamental design elements for the brand identity of the artist.

The design's unique properties lie in its generative tool, which creates unique design motifs by fusing the artist's identity with the spatial and temporal dimensions of his musical journey. By algorithmically mixing various seed inputs, such as images of the artist, locations musically relevant to him, the time of generation, and tracks from his new album, the system can iterate unlimited generations of curated design motifs, each unique to the case.

The system was developed using OFX, a C++ toolkit for creative coding. It functions with four seed inputs: location name, artist’s image, the system clock's time and date, and an audio track. The final step superimposes two meshes, uses Perlin noise and kaleidoscopic emulation filters to create real-time animation, and captures vibes from it.

Physical promotional materials were printed using the design motifs, including posters, vinyl covers, CDs, envelopes, letterheads, business cards, and brochures. The tool fuses images of the artist and musically relevant locations, organizing them into "aural impressions" based on various parameters, including date and time. These "momentary musical glimpses" then "listen" to the music from his album and translate themselves into unlimited, constantly evolving unique organic "Rorschach blot" shaped vibes which reflect the music's mood and texture.

The project, which started in September 2014 and finished in December 2014, was developed entirely in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The generative tool, used for every brand communication for the album launch of Dj Sarhi, is a core element of his new long-term brand identity. The development of the tool required intensive secondary research, studying and exploring academic papers on algorithms of visual design processing. Two rounds of focus group discussions were conducted to decide on the visual aspects of the iterated motifs and to determine whether the design form was clearly implemented.

The main challenge for the project was creating an ideal parametric process flow that is contextually relevant to the ethos of the project. Since the process was generative and had to iterate curated organic motifs, devising an optimum flow of processes with optimum value mapping and hierarchical architecture for all the parametric inputs for each step was another crucial challenge the team faced.

Reflect is a testament to Ice9 Interactive's innovative approach to brand identity. By fusing the artist’s identity with aspects of his musical journey, the system captures momentary tales of his music, representing them in ‘Rorschach blot’ inspired ‘VIBEs’. By algorithmically mixing various seed inputs relevant to the musician, the system can iterate unlimited generations of curated design motifs – each telling a different and unique story.