Photo by Sandijs Ruļuks

Shortly before Christmas, the graphic design studio Nord ID Riga won two ADCE Awards — a gold medal in the Editorial Design category for the book Stories in Sounds, and Nauris Jostsons, an agency employee, received the highest award as European Best Young Creative for his diploma work — the typeface Fonetika Grotesk.

Stories Evelīna Ozola January 8, 2021

ADCE, the Art Directors Club of Europe, holds annual European Design and Advertising Awards in order to inspire, educate and unite the creative community. This international competition is open to works that have already been recognised in national competitions in European countries.

 

Nord ID Riga is a graphic design studio specialising in brand and packaging design. Following the positive example of the Nordic agency network Nord in Stockholm, the studio was created by combining the power of Nord DDB Riga strategists with the design expertise and talent of designer Maija Rozenfelde and her team. The nominations and awards obtained during the short existence of the studio, as well as collaborations with strong Latvian brands, such as Stenders and the shopping centre Spice, testify to a strategic, creative approach that is understandable to customers and audiences alike.

 

Nauris Jostsons is a designer at the studio Nord ID Riga and a graduate of the Graphic Design track of the Functional Design Sub-department of the Latvian Academy of Arts. His awarded diploma work — typeface Fonetika Grotesk — was supervised by designer Maija Rozenfelde, who is also an Associate Professor of the Latvian Academy of Arts, and Head of the Design Department.

 

In 2020, the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (JVLAM) kicket off its 100th anniversary celebrations with the publication of the book Stories in Sounds: 100 Years of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. The author of the idea of Stories in Sounds is the rector of JVLAM, professor Guntars Prānis, but the creative team consists of author of the concept and design Maija Rozenfelde, photographer Artūrs Kondrāts and contributors Anda Beitāne, Annija Bičule and Gunda Miķelsone.

 

The book consists of ten interviews with students, graduates and lecturers of the Academy of Music, photo portraits, inspiring quotes, descriptions of study opportunities at the Academy of Music, and an insight into research projects. The visual design of Stories in Sounds was created by musicians and dancers experimenting with colour. A new dimension is added to the content of the book by the augmented reality application Overly, reviving the colour experiments performed by musicians in videos.

 

The experimental typeface Fonetika Grotesk, developed by Nauris Jostsons, is based on the phonetics of the Latvian language, adjusting the proportions of the letters to their sound. It references modern grotesk fonts and classic block letters. There are three variations in the font family, which symbolically represents the fusion and deformation of sounds. The first of them is clean and easy to perceive, the second blends together diphthongs, while the third is created in analog graphics techniques and serves as a visual metaphor for the sound’s fragility and possible interpretations.