UAE golden jubilee | 50th National Day Celebration | event & brand Design and Campaign

We began our design process with a question, ‘How can we create a celebratory identity system that represents UAE’s journey?’ The immediate answer was, we want a brand that would highlight our journey over the 50 years and give a glimpse into what we as a nation aspire for, for the next 50 years. A set of selected keywords that represent the UAE played the catalyst in inspiring us to create the visual graphics and color scheme for the brand.

The brand direction focuses on visually narrating and showcasing our past stories through nostalgic references, our present achievement through images of current surroundings & our future through color, layout and combination of elements. Utilizing the method of a kaleidoscope that mirrors all three phases we reflected on the past while living in the present moment and mirroring towards the future. By projecting and creating portals into the future, the language of mirroring and kaleidoscopes that is strongly present in the visual language, is a celebration of the three phases.

The show sculpture for the 50th National Day show, was constructed on top of water. The typographic element for the event title took inspiration from the process of constructing on top of water. We worked on manipulating the typography to portray the aspect of the type sitting on top of water. The show title is made up of the Wusoom symbols as a framed structure to hold the show title. To connect the show title with the show the Wusoom symbols that formed the frame were part of the show's narrative and represent some of the tribal symbols present in the UAE.

Furthermore, the key title graphic is a representation to highlight the year as a number. The seven emirates are represented as seven columns in a rippled format. Using some of the images found during the research, an extensive library of different illustrations and masked stamps was created. Taking as a basis the concepts of ripple effect, and mirrored treatment, a visual language was created from compositions created to reflect the importance of past, present and future that was essential since the beginning of the conception of the brand.

Client | Ministry of Public Affairs | Abu Dhabi, UAE