Visual language for a classical music festival as part of a branding course for an academic purpose. “1815” is a classical music festival with an emphasis on music from the Romantic period. The musical content consists of the best works of over 20 artists identified with the Romantic period. “1815” is a year that marks the beginning of the Romantic period in classical music, a period in which emotion prevailed and conventions were broken. The values that led the branding process are: disturbing, blatant, distorted and sensual.

The branding process was inspired by film director Gaspar Noa and by paintings of the artist Francisco Goya who is associated with the Romantic period. Gaspar Noah’s films are known to be disturbing and provocative. The unconventional connection between disturbing visual elements and relaxing classical music creates the main impact of the project. Goya’s paintings are taken from a series of his famous paintings called “The Black Paintings” which he painted in the last years of his life. The paintings were so named because of their darkness and because of the gloomy depictions that reflected Goya’s fears of insanity. Goya is identified with the romantic period, he promoted the development of painting to give up details and contours in order to emphasise form, character and emotion with the help of light and shadow, with little use of colours. The processing of the images is done by distorting details in the image with the help of the scanner in order to intensify emotions and feelings.