Aton brings pulsing floral visuals to life for Iceland Symphony Orchestra

For four years, Reykjavík-based design agency Aton has been creating seasonal visuals for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, building a relationship that extends well beyond the usual client-designer dynamic. When conversations turned to the Orchestra’s core brand assets, both parties recognised that some foundational elements – particularly the logo, first designed in 1988 – needed careful attention. What’s emerged isn’t a wholesale rebrand, but rather a considered refinement paired with an ambitious seasonal campaign for 2025–26. The Symphony’s original logo, created by Aðalbjörg Þórðardóttir, had weathered digitalisation but retained traces of unnecessary 2000s gradients that felt increasingly dated. Aton acquired high-resolution prints of the initial design, studying it closely to understand which qualities had been lost in previous digital translations. The goal was preservation with purpose – retaining the drawing’s character while optimising it for today’s media landscape. “We wanted to retain all of the initial drawing’s character, some of which we felt had been lost through digitisation in the past,” explains Siggi Odds, Creative Director at Aton. The work involved thickening the symbol’s thinnest lines so they’d remain visible at small scales like social media avatars, and creating a proper negative version that didn’t rely on clunky secondary outlines. The Symphony frequently uses black backgrounds, and the previous logo struggled in negative applications. Aton’s solution shifts the outline to the opposite side in the negative version, maintaining visual consistency across both treatments.