LEÓN ROMERO opt for icons over type in their accessible system for CCCB’s complex cultural offering

A complex assignment from the outset, the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture (CCCB) invited Barcelona-based visual communication studio LEÓN ROMERO to craft an identity and campaign for their complex four-part structure. Founded to make culture more democratic and accessible by partnering with the local community around them, the four areas of the organisation take on specific roles with their activity; ‘Alia,’ ‘Bioscopi,’ ‘Escola en Residència’ and ‘Diàlegs amb Mediadors a les Exposicions.’ Acutely aware of the project’s complicated premise, the studio set out to unify the four frameworks under a shared, iconography-led visual language that favours image over text, and therefore, allows each section to communicate its offering directly. “We wanted to create non-literal but descriptive icons for each axis,” Co-founders Jorge León and Mikel Romero tell us, “as we needed to make each axis and its related activities, events and programmes easy to identify for the audience,” opting to support the striking illustrations with URW’s Helvetica-inspired Nimbus Sans as the hero typeface. “CCCB’s visual language is based on the use of black and white and Helvetica for the brandmark,” León and Romero explain, recalling the additional difficulty of crafting an identity that sits alongside CCCB’s existing monochromatic, Helvetica-driven brand. “It hasn’t evolved as a brand system or language,” they continue, “so for this new axis, we wanted to evolve and give personality to the brand,” making it more consistent, coherent and recognisable. “We created a flexible and modular system to prioritise or highlight any content,” León and Romero add, “and also created the iconography to easily recognise each axis.”