Kinetic Typographic Identity

5 min readApr 28, 2021

Lollapalooza

Background

Lollapalooza — (Lolla) is an annual four-day music festival in Chicago, Illinois, at Grant Park, founded in 1991 and since expanded to other countries. Performances include but are not limited to alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock, hip hop, and electronic music. Lollapalooza has also provided a platform for nonprofit and political groups and various visual artists.

The word — sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced as lollapalootza, lalapaloosa, lallapaloosa (P. G. Wodehouse, “Heart of a Goof”), dates from a late 19th-century/early 20th-century American idiomatic phrase meaning “an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance”. Its earliest known use was in 1896.In time, the term also came to refer to a large lollipop. Farrell, searching for a name for his festival, liked the euphonious quality of the by-then-antiquated term upon hearing it in a Three Stooges short film. Paying homage to the term’s double meaning, a character in the festival’s original logo holds a lollipop

Current Visual System

The current visual system is Funky, Retro, Playful, Cartoon-like, Creative, Colorful and Fresh. In order for me to further understand the visual system of Lollapalooza I created a type matrix. And from the type matrix I gathered inspirations according to each category within the matrix.

Inspiration

Wordmark Sketches

I began sketching and coming up with different iterations for my wordmark taking into consideration the current values of the visual system while also making it different, being more playful and funky. I drew inspiration from the doodles and cartoons on the Lollapalooza posters and wanted to add elements of playfulness and fun as well as creating a sketchy and hand drawn feeling. At first i played around with different retro and funky typefaces, but I realized it didn’t give me the same feeling as to a hand drawn wordmark. So I began to experiment with different shapes and forms creating outlines, fills, shadows and etc. As I continued to brainstorm and sketch out new ideas, I thought it would be a really fun way to utilize cartoon eyes as the two O’s in Lollapalooza bringing character and motion to the wordmark. In addition, I added doodle like floral accents to emphasize the funky and retro feeling as well.

Final Workmark — Still and Animated

Branding Guidlines

For the typeface and primary and secondary text, I used the font Mindset and Balgin. I chose the font mindset as the primary font because of its playful and funky characteristics that are similar to the wordmark. While it is similar to the wordmark, it can stand on its own without overpowering the logo. I chose Balgin as the secondary font because of its unique characters being round and fun yet serious and it also very legible and readable.

For the color palette, I wanted to stick to colors that are bright and contrasting but still creates a harmonious palette. These colors also spark playful, retro and funky characteristics and reminds me of 80’s fashion.

In the wordmark, I incorporated the use of the cartoon eyeballs and the flower graphic to create a fun and doodle-like element. And I wanted to incorporate those graphic elements into the visual system as it can be used across different applications.