An Grianán Logo wins European Design Award
Posted 15 May 2007
An Grianán Theatre's new company logo has won a European Design Award for best company logo. The logo was designed by Carton LeVert Design and Communication, a design studio based in Rathmullan, Co Donegal. A jury of Europe’s top design critics and journalists selected the studio’s ‘variable’ logo design for An Grianán from a pool of work by some of Europe’s best designers.
Above: the variable logo reflects the ever-changing nature of An Grianán's programme.
Responding to the award, Libby Carton of Carton LeVert said, “we’re absolutely thrilled and honoured. It confirms that a small studio and a small client on the periphery of Ireland can compete creatively and rank up there with the best that Europe has to offer.” She also paid tribute to Daithí Ramsay and Patricia McBride at An Grianán Theatre for having the courage and foresight to go with a design that plays with the commonly accepted rules of company logos. “They deserve a lot of credit,” Carton said, “for recognising the value and enjoying the playful character of a logo that is a bit unusual.”
Above: the logo in place on our front door.
The studio’s winning design typographically visualises the concept of theatre and performance. Carton calls it a very simple idea, one based on the already existing parallels between a piece of type and a character on stage. “Type is a character,” she said, “we even call letters characters. Depending on its design and context, type communicates myriad emotions and states, from fear and panic to joy and happiness and everything in between. What is a theatre other than a blank stage, an empty auditorium waiting to be infused with human emotion? We expressed this by placing ever-changing typographic treatments of the letter ‘g’, the players, within a constant black frame representing the stage and auditorium.”
Carton LeVert
Currently based in the rural, seaside community of Rathmullan in Donegal, Carton LeVert was founded by Libby Carton and Rick LeVert in Berlin, Germany in 1997. The pair moved the business to Dublin in 1999, before heading further north in 2002. “Receiving an ED Award.” LeVert said, “is the perfect way for us to celebrate what has been ten years of excitement and very hard work.”
Carton LeVert received a Glen Dimplex Design Award in 2001 and have had numerous projects shortlisted for the IDI design awards. Both partners in the business are graduates of the National College of Art & Design in Dublin. Libby Carton was president of the Institute of Designers in Ireland (IDI) in 2002, and is a member of the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD). She is also the recipient of a European Art Directors Award in Gold.
Please do not reproduce our logo without prior permission. To obtain print quality versions please contact Nicola or Daithi at 0749123288.
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Above: (left to right) Daithi Ramsay, Marketing Manager, An Grianán, Libby Carton and Rick LeVert of Carton Levert at the European Design Awards, Athens, May 11 2007.
"What is a theatre other than a blank stage, an empty auditorium waiting to be infused with human emotion? We expressed this by placing ever changing typographic treatments of the letter ‘g’, the players, within a constant black frame representing the stage and auditorium.”
European Design Awards
The European Design Awards is a comprehensive annual awards programme acknowledging the best of graphic design, illustration and multimedia design in Europe. It is based on a collaboration between twelve prestigious communication design magazines in Europe. The jury is composed of representatives from 2+3D, CAP & Design, +design, étapes, Eye, IDPURE, Items, KAK, Lineagrafica, novum, TYPO and Visual.