Looking back at the festival’s history, the two Andrejs’ wanted to carry forward its personality, changing its materials, colours, textures, levels of abstractions, veering into the sculptural and glossy and sometimes the simplistic. “Freedom is one of Pohoda’s core values, so we created a colourful gradient version of the logo to represent it. Another version uses bright, candy-like colours, reflecting the fact that Pohoda has always been a very colourful festival, with bold colours playing an important role in its visual identity,” says Andrej Č. “Stripes were closely associated with Pohoda during a particular period of its history. At one point, it almost felt as though the typical Pohoda visitor always wore a striped, navy-like T-shirt. We liked the idea of bringing that visual memory back.” As well as that, the merchandising was of great importance, which Andrej and Andrej developed in collaboration with Linda Straková – drawing on different layers of the identity with production taking place in Portugal at a GOTS-certified factory, with an emphasis on material quality and craftsmanship.
Central to the festivals’ new design is the aforementioned twin baby logo (fitting to be redesigned by two Andrejs’!). Created in collaboration with 3D artist Matej Martinec, the new logo shows how far the festival has come; in 1997, the babies originally appeared as a photograph, then in 2001, a graphic rendition was created. Reversing that process, Andrej and Andrej brought the babies back to the third dimension, developing a digital model of the iconic pair. This opened the floodgates for what was possible across the festival’s design, such as being turned into an enormous inflatable twin sculpture, looming over festival-goers like the famous space baby from 2001: A Space Odyssey – and there’s even a neat transparent keyring of the babies. “It reflects the meaning of the Slovak word pohoda: a feeling of ease, closeness and togetherness. Over the years, these two babies have become one of the most recognisable visual symbols in Slovakia,” says Andrej B.