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Opinion by Richard Baird.
L’Observatoire International is a American lighting design studio, co-founded in 1993 by Hervé Descottes, made up of lighting designers, architects, interior designers, engineers, and artists who work on a variety of projects, illuminating both modern and classical architecture and spaces. L’Observatoire International worked with New York-based design studio Triboro to develop a new visual identity. This runs across printed assets that included business cards and a new website.
Triboro’s work for L’Observatoire International, as you would imagine, effectively plays with light and shadow. This is conveyed in print through blind deboss and emboss finishes, casting shadows and creating highlights in different directions across an uncoated white board, and in the use of black and white, a clear expression of light and the absence of light. The two together work well to capture both the extremes and everything in between, with the business card working in an element of interaction and materiality.
The logo is nicely balanced, with the fine line of the L and the fill of the O also playing with duality. The ‘, drawn as a circle, set over the O, appears as what you might consider a source, creating tension between illumination and object, which is likely to resonate with architects, designers, and anyone who has dealt with 3d modelling.
The website’s use of a cool dark grey background and white copy functions to draw out and emphasise the colour and and nuance of the studio’s portfolio, and makes a connection with, but inverts, the aesthetics associated with contemporary architecture.
The contact page features a three-dimensional rendering of logo (above) with its lighting tied to time of day. It is a small but neat detail that effectively emphasises the theme of illumination with a single light source, some basic forms depth and hight, distilling down what is complex and nuanced service into a very clear graphic expression whilst also acknowledges the changes in natural light through out the day.
Design: Triboro. Opinion Richard Baird.
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