Art Interrupted is a visual identity project developed for Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. The project explores artistic freedom and the pressures artists face, and required a recognisable visual system that could work consistently across social media and video formats.

Client Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom

Role Visual Identity Design

Scope Logo, key visual, quote cards, video stills, title frames, motion graphics elements, disclaimer screens

I developed the full visual identity of the project within the foundation’s existing brand framework. This included creating the project logo and defining a visual direction that connected clearly to the project’s title and theme, while working with the organisation’s established dark blue and magenta palette. I worked in collaboration with the marketing manager, with proposals reviewed and approved together with the foundation’s chair.

The main challenge was to create a distinct and memorable identity within a fixed institutional color system. Since the same brand colors are used across many different initiatives, the project risked feeling too similar to other campaigns. My task was to build a visual identity with its own recognisable character, while still remaining clearly connected to the organisation.

The concept grew directly from the word “interrupted” in the project title. I associated it with glitch, digital distortion, broken continuity, and visual interference. This became the starting point for the identity: a visual language that suggests disruption and pressure, while also referencing glitch art as a form that transforms disruption into a new kind of expression.

I translated this idea into a glitch-inspired system using fragmented letterforms, channel shifts, layered distortion, and controlled visual noise. The goal was to create tension and character without losing legibility or flexibility. Rather than using glitch as decoration, I used it as a visual mechanism directly linked to the theme.

The logo started as an intuitive experimental direction developed through sketching and visual testing. One of the key challenges was turning that raw visual idea into a professional, high-resolution design system that could work reliably across different formats and production needs. The final identity kept the energy of the initial experiment, but was refined into a scalable and consistent system.

The key visual had to do several things at once: create instant recognition, set the tone of the project, attract attention, and hold the series together across both video and social media. It became the central anchor of the identity system, helping unify all supporting materials under one recognisable visual language.

The identity was applied across a full set of campaign materials, including the logo, key visual, quote cards, video stills, title frames, motion graphics elements for the film edits, and disclaimer screens. This allowed the project to maintain a consistent visual thread across both expressive and functional formats.

I consciously avoided overly clean, sterile, or corporate-looking solutions. The project needed tension, texture, and character. A polished institutional style would have made the subject feel flatter and less specific.

This project reflects an approach I often use in design: starting from language and meaning, then translating that into a visual system with its own internal logic. In this case, the logo became the conceptual anchor for the wider identity, and the identity itself became a way to carry the project’s theme across both static and motion-based communication.Screen Art Interrupted

Art is universal, so are its problems. ‘Art Interrupted’ aims to explore the difficulties in the field of art, to raise broader awareness of the problems faced by artists, and to develop collective solutions to problems of freedom of expression in East and Southeast Europe. Limitations range from the global pandemic and economic crises; though authoritarianism, political oppression and self-censorship; to homophobia, xenophobia and social prejudice, to the financial struggles of independent artists.