From May 26 to June 1, a new contemporary art festival, the Riga Art Week (RAW), will take place for the first time, bringing together local and international artists, curators, and creatives to build and experience the diversity of culture in Riga. The visual system of RAW, created by the design studio Support System, explores the timeline of the festival and highlights the apt acronym of the event.
The diverse programme of Riga Art Week (RAW), aimed at both art professionals and the general public, includes art exhibitions, lectures, workshops, pop-up venues, and events with international guests. According to the organisers of the event, the Galleries Association of Latvia, the aim of RAW is to promote cooperation between art institutions, galleries, and industry representatives, highlighting Riga’s potential on the map of European cultural events. During the festival, special attention will be paid to the integration of contemporary art into Riga’s urban environment: events will take place both in well-known cultural venues and in the new creative neighbourhoods of Grīziņdārzs and Veldze. In addition, most of the RAW events are free of charge.
RAW stands out not only for its diverse range of events accessible to a wide audience but also for its simple, easy-to-read, and contemporary visual system, created by the Support System studio, which was founded by designers Evija Krištopane and Valters Kalsers. The backbone of RAW’s visual system is the week as a timeline: the division into days is the basis for structuring content on the RAW website, social media posts, and other materials, and the timeline is also represented graphically to complement the RAW logo, for example, in the navigation of the festival website and on the cover of the event guide.
The central element of the visual identity is the Riga Art Week logo — it represents the festival’s abbreviation, RAW. In a conversation with Radio Naba, curator Tīna Pētersone, one of the festival’s organisers, explains that the RAW designation indicates something that comes directly from the source. «There are many art festivals in the world, but not all of them have been lucky enough to have such a catchy acronym,» says Tīna. From the logo, designers have derived a separate graphic element — lettermark R, which includes photographs of the festival events, artists, and locations.
The typefaces used in RAW’s visual identity were chosen with the aim of creating an impression of simplicity and taking readability into account as an important factor. The fonts chosen refer to two very popular typefaces — Times New Roman and Helvetica —for which the designers have chosen more unique and modern alternatives — PS Times and Helveestii. In choosing the colour palette for the visual identity, Support System aimed to create strong contrasts as well as to structure the information. The bright colours make it easier to divide the communication content and the days of the week into separate categories or to highlight specific RAW events.
Evija from the Support System notes that in the first year of Riga Art Week, the emphasis was on defining the main elements of identity, deliberately avoiding an overly decorative approach. As the festival develops, its visual system will be complemented, and eventually it is intended that Latvian artists’ photographs of Riga locations, which the event organisers will invite visitors to explore during RAW, will also become an integral part of the visual identity. «We have worked on projects directly related to Riga before, and it is always interesting to find the best way to communicate about the city itself. We really hope that the RAW identity will not only work as branding for Riga Art Week but will also be a reflection of our city,» says Evija.
Riga Art Week takes place from May 26 to June 1. Alongside a wide-ranging contemporary art programme, RAW also offers design-related events: from May 29 to 31, the installation Meatrack, a collaboration between the architectural practice Ēter and the architect and curator James Taylor–Foster, where dramaturgy is intertwined with furniture design, will be on view at Slokas iela 52; while on May 31 at 19.00, the Backdoor Market pop-up gallery at the creative factory Veldze will host the Salons RAW episode featuring the artist duo Swedish Girls and James Taylor–Foster.
A full programme of Riga Art Week events can be found on the RAW website. The festival is organised by the Latvian Gallery Association in cooperation with the Investment and Tourism Agency of Riga.
Viedokļi