Studio Rally draws Sonic Cinema’s identity from sound and light

Sonic Cinema designs and builds private home cinemas in Kuwait. For a rebrand rooted in the films, it went to local design practice Studio Rally, which created the identity, printed pieces and website. “We wanted the rebrand to shift the conversation away from speakers, projectors and technical specifications, and towards what the cinema is ultimately created for – the movies,” Sonic Cinema’s Bader Al Sabah tells us. “After completing several projects, we began hearing the same reaction from our clients: watching a favourite film in their new cinema felt like experiencing it for the first time,” Al Sabah explains. “The technology created complete immersion, but what stayed with them was the feeling the film gave them. That made us realise that this had always been the real purpose of our work.” Sonic Cinema’s clients differ in taste but share a love of film. The company wants the first conversation to be about which movies a client loves and how they like to experience them. Film Club, a sub-brand, came out of that idea. The primary Sonic Cinema lockup has the Arabic sitting above the Latin, which is a condensed sans serif typeface set on a shallow arc. “The Latin wordmark originates from Bebas Neue, but it was modified to follow the shape of the containing brand element – the wave-like structure that frames the logo,” Studio Rally’s Founder & Design Lead, Sara Al Dhubaib, tells us. “That containing shape itself follows the concept of sound and light beams radiating from the centre, which represents the screen. Rather than sitting on a straight baseline, the letters were adjusted to curve and slope in line with that geometry.” The Arabic is set in Ruq’ah, an expressive script associated with classic film titles and vintage Arabic movie posters, and it was lettered by hand before being digitised and cleaned up for the lockup. “Rather than forcing both onto a single shared baseline, each was allowed to follow its own rhythm, the grounded Latin type and the flowing Arabic script, while both remain anchored within the same overall wave-shaped frame,” Al Dhubaib adds.