Vespertine Offering
The story
I flourish in the evening. Hence the synonymous ‘vespertine’ /ˈvɛspətʌɪn,ˈvɛspətɪn/, the offering is self-explainatory and is just a synonym for the inspiration nightfall brings. The logo is pretty straight forward and flawlessly fuses vespertine and offering. In short, on one hand it represents the dark aesthetic and philosophy Vespertine Offering stands for and on the other hand it soothes by bringing it in a stylish yet minimal way. The skull is the philsophy, the hands are the method. The arms balance things, there symmetry is almost synonymous for ‘as above, so below’ - with a certain, literal, twist:
Vespertine Offering is a dark aesthetic collective with the emphasis on sinister and visually engaging storytelling.
The brand design
In Sebastian Münsters’, 'Cosmographia' (1544-1552) I found a woodcut of a hand holding a staff surmounted by a half-length miniature skeleton. This image represented what Vespertine Offering is about, a rough mixture of the dark aesthetic mixed with some modern, yet uncompromised design.
I completely redrew the logo, added some adjustments here and there and vectorised it accordingly. This way we have way more flexibility, no size limitations and this way of working also allowed me to easily make different variations of the logo to be used on different occasions.
We have the full blown logo –as featured on top of the page and below– to be used in official communication and towards people who are not familiar with the brand. Next to the large logo we have two variations that can be used as decorative element in a page or design: the logo with the skull and one with the hands. And, lastly, the textual logo that also can be used as a standalone logo that represents this ‘brand’.
The individual items, like the skull and hands, can also be used as illustrative elements. For example, and as shown below, the elements and minimised logos are used on the Gardens of Remembrance cover and back-cover.
This way the brand connects to a project or, if you like, sub brand. Since Gardens of Remembrance is an own project this allowed me to use some creativity to stitch the two together.
The logo is strictly black and white due to its dark aesthetic nature and its no-nonse attitude. Exceptions are made when the logo needs to blend in to a design, this way we can use a color that is used in the color scheme of the ‘parent design’ (see above) or, the opacity of the black is lowered to 70%. For example this is the case on the business cards (see images below). The transparency also allows the texture of the paper to penetrate the overall look and feel. When used on a dark (or colored) background the reverse value of the 70% is used. This can be 30% black or, a color that is linked to the design where the logo is used.
Brand application and ‘goodies’
The logo was used to create several ‘goodies’ and other useful applications. So far we derived the following from the design: buttons, stickers, t-shirts, business cards, roll-out banners, etc…
2024 Events
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De Duystere Markt, NL
April 14, 2024 – 10-18h
Rusheuvelstraat 5,
5346 JH Oss, NL -
Rariteitenbeurs, BE
June 1, 2024
‘t Noorden: Armenstraatje 1/4
2040 Zandvliet, BE -
De Duystere Markt, BE
Date TBA
Thor park: André Dumontlaan 67
3600 Genk, BE