The Rotterdam film and design studio From Form has unveiled its new brand identity inspired by cinema to show the scope of its projects in the fields of cinema, Design, Animation and photography.
From Form was founded in 2013 by husband and wife duo Ashley Govers and Jurjen Versteeg “to offer a playful and cinematic approach to cinema and design,” explains the Duo. Govers and Versteeg add that From Form “places a strong emphasis on artistic direction and carefully arranged colors and compositions… where the result often reflects their appreciation of the analogous and the imperfect”.
The Studio works on both commercial and self-initiated projects, on short films, campaigns, advertisements, film titles, graphic design, photography and animation. Clients include Ace & Tate, Skoda, Amsterdam Museum Night and the OFFF Festival.
The new identity marks From Form’s tenth anniversary, capturing his “love of color, cinematic typography and nostalgic aesthetics,” according to the Studio. The revamped look and the redesigned website are inspired by the titles of films from the 60s and 70s, namely those used in French new wave directors such as Agnes Varda and Jean –Luc Godard.
According to From Form, these titles illustrate “an art form where the worlds of cinema and analog design meet”. The studio’s passion with film titles is mainly due to the somewhat unusual typography, with subtle imperfections in the spacing and size of the letter shapes thanks to the nuances of their analog design process.
Other important reference points are printed documents from the same period, such as brochures, magazines and manuals. The documents printed on the Bolex cameras of the 1960s and 1970s proved to be particularly inspiring, from Form Looking to the old Bolex manuals to Bolex Reporter, the brand-owned magazine that was published from 1950 to 1974.
The new branding is peppered with visual references to analog design processes, such as the use of shapes with rounded corners to hide images as a nod to the view of a camera viewfinder. Elsewhere, the fixed-spaced fonts refer to Vintage typewriters.
“The use of analog techniques is as important in our projects as the textures and the associated imperfections,” says Govers, creative director and co-founder of Form. “We wanted to create an identity that shows our love of analog and takes back the patina of time.”
Creative director and co-founder Versteeg adds: “We knew that we wanted an identity that didn’t hinder our work, that already had a Frank visual style, but that remained intact and, even better, improved the work.”