How Oslo and writer J.G. Ballard meet Typography

Non-Format designed the Only Connect Festival of Sound 2014 catalogue presenting essays, photography and various printed ephemera relating to British science fiction writer and predictor of the near future J.G. Ballard. Non-Format finds inspirations in the architectural detail of the contemporary urbanisation in the heart of Oslo.
Reducing to logo simplicity and then layering on top of each other they created their own Ballardian vision of Oslo’s new skyline.
Non Format also created a custom typeface for this project. They took as a starting point Paul Renner’s early sketches for Futura, created a kind of postmodernist typeface.

See below images of the flyer, poster, catalogue and the festival program. “Some of which were refolded to create the catalogue’s bellyband which depicts a romanticised vision of water, as though in wilful denial of the menace of rising sea levels.”

Who is ‘Non Format’

Non-Format was established in London in 2000 by Kjell Ekhorn (Norwegian) and Jon Forss (British). Together they work on a range of projects including art direction, design, illustration and custom typography for clients including Adobe, Coca-Cola, EMI, Gap, IBM, New York Times, Nike, Nokia, Rick Owens, Sony Music and a great many others. Their work has garnered many design awards including a D&AD Yellow Pencil, two Tokyo TDC Prizes and a New York ADC Gold. Several projects are also part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. A bestselling hardback monograph of their work was published in 2007. In the same year Jon relocated to the United States and, in 2009, Kjell returned to his native Norway. Despite the seven hour time difference the duo collaborate closely on every project, and thank Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers and the founders of Skype for helping to make this possible.