STEIM, the Studio for Electro Instrumental Music, has been pushing the boundaries of music and technology since the late 1960s. Based in Amsterdam, it built a reputation as one of the leading centres for electronic and experimental music in the world. Together with Studio Remco van Bladel, a poster campaign was created to announce STEIM's 50th anniversary festival.
strategy
The poster had to carry the weight of fifty years of history while feeling celebratory. The approach was to root the design directly in STEIM's own archive, drawing from the visual material the organisation had accumulated over five decades.
design
The number 50 forms the focal point of the poster, illustrated with the use of photographs drawn from STEIM's archive. The metallic gold finish references the golden anniversary, while the fine lines running through the design depict the welds found on the circuit boards of electronic instruments. Together, these elements tie the celebration directly to the technology at the heart of STEIM's work.
insight
By building the number 50 from actual archive material, the poster made the history visible. The typographic and visual references of electronic circuitry celebrates the core of what STEIM is.
deliverables
The project produced a poster series distributed across Amsterdam to announce the 2019 anniversary festival, bringing STEIM's fifty-year history into the streets for a wider audience.
