2020 was supposed to be the year where Antwerp Art Weekend would launch its new website, offering a tailor made, user friendly digital version of the program for the first time, next to a printed booklet, which had been the norm for four years prior. Another introduction into the digital, to an audience that is so used to handling print material. That introduction is no longer needed, as with the pandemic induced crisis and multiple lock down periods, people have been confined to their homes for a multitude of hours they normally would not be, forced to find joy in their surroundings and entertainment, but mostly diversion, through their indoor black screens. Positively, it created a plethora of new digital content and pushed organizations to work differently with the digital channels they already owned. Antwerp Art too using its newly built website to reflect on the past in the form of extended articles and the implementation of a visual archive, instead of launching the program for the next Antwerp Art Weekend, which was cancelled in March last year.
A big part of the Antwerp Art Weekend is its visual identity, which evolves and changes every edition, and how that identity radiates to an audience. So after deciding we would cancel and not postpone, thus remitting the visual campaign for 2020, the thought of our 2021 edition needing to present itself significantly different was an immediate one.
Fall and Winter are notoriously the dark seasons and with the Antwerp Art Weekend happening in May, we needed to bridge those together with overcoming an unexpected year of, well, pretty dark times, as well as gamble almost one year ahead that the next edition would be able to take place.
Therefore, Antwerp Art and design bureau Vrints-Kolsteren wanted the 2021 visual campaign to beam the opposite by using a bright and plentiful color scheme to hint at and/or amplify joyfulness. V-K started with an expansion of the grid, breaking it down into smaller blocks, which meant more tiles and lines to puzzle with, making the overall design more playful, and the doubling of a 5 year old design choice to work with only four colors, to eight plus black and white. This resulted in each item looking completely different, while maintaining coherence in the identity as a whole by sticking to its base rules.
Imbuing the design with this feeling was most certainly intentional. Attempting for it to convey to visitors and passersby, serving as a light that shines at the near end of this tunnel. Colors that brighten the grim palette that is "corona".
We sincerely hope that you are able to visit the Antwerp Art Weekend, that you are able to walk around the city, go in and out of the participating art spaces, galleries and museums, do a guided tour or make your own, and have a drink along the way. That you grab your free sample of the new tote bag and that you collect hand outs, exhibition texts and other print material in our specially made folder, which functions for just that. We sincerely hope that you enjoy this years Antwerp Art Weekend.