SPARC
A bold brand identity for a boundary-pushing research collective at the University of Alberta.
SPARC (Shifting Praxis in Artistic Research/Research-Creation) is a newly founded Signature Area in research in the Faculty of Arts. The goal of SPARC is to provide opportunities for art minded individuals to pursue research in areas that are meaningful to them. Research-creation, practice-based research, and artistic research are all terms used to describe this conjunction of artistic research and scholarly research practices. SPARC advocates for research creation practices across the Faculty of Arts in a way that takes artistic literacies like visual art, design, music, and drama seriously. Innovation and collaboration are at the core of this group. These values are reflected by the groups co-direction, which is shared by four professors from the Art and Design (Natalie Loveless, Sean Caulfield), Music (Scott Smallwood), and Drama (Beau Coleman) departments in the Faculty of Arts.
SPARC was in need of a visual identity that would establish them on campus and in the greater academic community as a recognizable, independent, and cutting edge research group. This identity needed to be a modern and non-traditional mark that reflected the interdisciplinary, exploratory, and innovative art world that they exist in. SPARC wants to inspire alternative ways of thinking, urgently infiltrate dominant ideologies, be dynamic, and turn the traditional sense of research on its head.
System Elements
SPARC wanted stand out from the usual language of academia. Although red and blue serve as more traditional building blocks of colour, these bright hues mix, layer, and combine with pattern and image to reflect the group’s interdisciplinary roots. The visual interaction of layers throughout the system symbolizes the collaboration and unifying aspect of SPARC. Alternate Gothic is heavy, sturdy, modern, and proud. This typeface has an impact and makes itself seen. It serves as the header and logo typeface for the system.
These web banners use found imagery from seancaulfield.ca and newmaternalisms.ca
Fall 2019