New symbol concepts

 New symbol concepts

I did some research into existing symbols that could conceptually relate to the themes within Berlin techno; one of the examples that stuck out to me was this elven symbol series as it related to how the club scene/ community in Berlin was referred to as 'The Kingdom' and other worldly. I wanted to use these symbols as a reference but put my own spin and apply my own style in order to make the symbols align with the sense of voice I wanted to create. I feel like these would be interesting to use as they are very abstract and link to the themes of censorship I want to communicate. 

Sketches

Using the symbol research for reference, I created these initial sketches for each of the 5 rules of the techno tourist guide. I want to create some digital outcomes to make the edges cleaner and more symmetrical, but I think these could work really nicely especially as icons for the poster series. I like how in contrast to the previous symbol designs I created, they feel a lot more abstract and playful, which in turn pushes the audience to learn their meaning through the educational aspect of the techno tourist guide. 

Digital outcomes

I really like how these symbols turned out digitally as they overcome the previous issue I had with consistency; they all share the same tone of voice and would work well in regards to the publication and poster series. At some point I definitely want to get some peer feedback on whether I should run with these, as because they are more abstract I'm worried that they aren't as conceptually strong. However, I suppose the whole concept behind creating these symbols is that they aren't meant to be clear to the audience initially, and they gain their meaning through the information provided in the publication guide. 

Number concept

I wanted to explore another abstract concept by creating a numerical rule for each symbol; each symbol could consist of a number of dots that relate to the coordinates for each rule; this sketch below is for the Berghain coordinates as an example. I feel like this idea definitely looks more visually linked to techno itself, but my only worry is that some of the numbers are quite large so some symbols might be more complex than others. I want to create some digital outcomes and create all 5 symbols in order to find out. 

I created a digital version of the number symbol which worked quite well as the style fitted the clean and minimal shapes. I don't think that this symbol concept would work in terms of every rule, as each coordinate for the locations on the map are very long and all begin with 52 and 13. However, this sparked a new idea, as because each location has the same beginning coordinates, I could use this symbol as a motif for the whole project; the 52 13 coordinates are for Berlin, so it would tie the whole project together, kind of like a techno tourist logo.