One Army Identity Exploration (Patreon)

Being very visual people as soon as we began dreaming about One Army from our vans in Portugal in summer 2018 we also naturally started exploring how this new movement could look. 

Research
Right from the beginning Nicolas Paries, a very skilled brand designer that joined us during V4, did an amazing job and begun to research what One Army could look like. His detailed research took us through history to learn how great movements, actions, subcultures, religions and revolutions managed to succeed or fail and how central their visual language was to bring people together around a shared cause.

First explorations
After the analysis, came the first concepts and visual explorations. Tests and tryouts to see what One Army could look like and what would fit this newborn idea. One Army identity presents many great challenges, starting with its name and the need to smooth the war connotation into a fun and approachable visual identity and logo to represent who we really are.  Peaceful, fun and creative utopians that like to believe the world can be unfucked. 

Star
Filtering through the initial burst of creativity we honed the concept down to an asterisc first and a star eventually. North star to be precise. A visual metaphor for One Army, a movement aiming to become the north start for thousands of people on how to live a little more sustainable on this planet.  Very much inspired by the work of Miró and Dali, Nico presented many versions of the star in hundreds of colours, renders, strokes, context and sizes.

Version 4 volunteers immediately took the star and made it their own. Painting it, spraying it and stitching it everywhere. Then Version 4 was over. Everyone went back home. And this beautiful research sat in some datacenter dusting away for a few months. 

Next post --> One Army Identity Phase Two

Ciao Army!
Mattia