LEO MILANO
Festival posters hanging in a concrete underpass behind barrier tape, in hard light.

Design · Branding

Identity for a popular-science festival about chaos, built on the Lorenz attractor

A festival about chaos theory, the maths of systems so sensitive that a tiny change at the start leads somewhere no one can predict. I built its identity on the Lorenz attractor: five black A3 posters where the attractor's paths turn into grainy light, and a quiet monospace logo that falls apart into “t / he / ory / chaos”.

Year
2024
Role
Concept, generative images, identity, posters, carriers
Tools
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator

Brief

Chaos theory describes non-linear systems that, under certain conditions, behave chaotically: they depend so much on their starting point that a small change in the surroundings can lead to results nobody can predict.

The festival explores the different sides of chaos in our world, with lectures, discussions and interactive exhibits that show what the theory has actually changed.

01/05 Black poster: a thick bundle of grainy white curves sweeping up the right side; heading codename: Lorenz Attractor, side #1, with text blocks on the left.
02/05 Black poster: a wide arc of grainy white lines across the upper half, like a horizon; heading side #2.
03/05 Black poster: dense diagonal white strokes filling most of the page; heading side #3.
04/05 Black A3 poster: the butterfly-shaped Lorenz attractor drawn in grainy white strokes, with the heading codename: Lorenz Attractor, side #4, and small monospace text about the butterfly effect.
05/05 Black poster: a large tilted oval loop of grainy white light filling the page; heading side #5.

The identity stays black and white and monospace, like a printout from a lab, so the images can be the loud part.

Idea

The Lorenz attractor is the most famous picture of chaos: a path that loops forever around two centres and never repeats, and that happens to look like a butterfly. Each poster is one “side” of it, seen so close that the line becomes texture. The text on each one explains a different side of the idea, from weather models to the butterfly effect to why chaos is worth teaching.

The identity stays black and white and monospace, like a printout from a lab, so the images can be the loud part.

I started with generative images: attractors, folds and noisy data maps. Then I searched for a logo, trying six directions, from a network of nodes to a spiral to a wordmark caught between two lenses. The final one is the simplest: the words broken by lines, “t / he / ory / chaos”, as if the type itself had drifted.

Three generative posters side by side: rings, a folded star and a scattered map.
Logo directions on black: a network, a spiral, rings and a CTF mark.
The logo on black: “t / he / ory / chaos” stacked in a monospace.

Result

The posters, plus a full set of carriers: a visitor badge, a letterhead, a notebook, business cards made out to Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory (a small Easter egg), a pencil, an envelope, a booklet with a map of the festival zones, navigation signs, a tote and T-shirts.

A bus-stop poster with the spiral, on a city street.
A hanging sign: “lecture areas”.
Lanyard badges: a visitor pass.
A folded site map: central square, lecture areas, rest area.
A black tote bag with the festival lettering on concrete steps.
Black festival T-shirts, on a model and on a hanger.
Three festival pin badges on white: the black “theory chaos” logo, a white one with a butterfly made of code, and one turned over.

Credits

  • Mockups: stock templates

HSE Art and Design School, BA Communication Design