A selection of projects
by Lesley Moore

The Dutch Opera, The Dutch National Ballet and The Amsterdam Music Theatre have merged to form the Dutch National Opera & Ballet. The two companies will keep their own brand names, but from now on will operate together as one house. Their new visual identity was designed by Lesley Moore.

In essence both opera and ballet are about “story-telling”, and this forms the basic thinking behind the logo. The Dutch National Opera & Ballet consists of numerous stories, both on- and back-stage. The layering of these stories is visible in the logo, leaving the name of the art forms in the foreground. The logo is used as a frame, leaving space for an ever-changing range of stories.

The art forms only truly come alive when in motion, in moving image and music. Based on this idea, Lesley Moore came up with the concept for the campaigns using a “moving still image” which tells the story of specific performances. The campaigns make use of the possibilities offered by new media, and the new website operaballet.nl has been developed to exploit this to the full.

The geometrical visual identity of Centraal Museum Utrecht can be read both as a visual translation of its character as a cultural venue, and as a symbol of its name and location in the heart of the Netherlands.

The centrally placed spot is a constant, positioned within a changing cultural landscape. Dotted lines to and from the dot provide relevant information according to time and form - whether an exhibition, signage within the museum or supplementary materials.

The dot as an active element in every medium of communication makes the museum recognisable, yet leaves space for the changing content of its exhibitions.

The result is a visual identity in which content and presentation have become one.

From a seed to a plant to the vegetables on your plate: without growth, Warmoesmarkt would contain no ripe tomatoes or other seasonal local produce — a fact that formed the core idea for the graphic identity of this food store. The concept took shape in the form of a typographic system based on a perforation placed in each eye-bearing letter in the name Warmoesmarkt.

The interior reads as a three-dimensional grid inspired by the classic market. Everything from price tags to product information hangs on this – literally as well as metaphorically. Although applied to letters of varying size, the dimensions of the perforations remain constant – a fluctuating contrast that symbolises growth, so essential for everything on sale.

The house style of art gallery Wilfried Lentz was required to not only express the pioneer mentality of the gallery, but also do justice to its individual artists.

Lesley Moore found the balance between these two needs in a striking interplay by which each new exhibitor is assigned a unique and appropriate font. The artist’s name and the date of the exhibition are an amalgam of the previous and the new.

The method leads to curious letter combinations, resulting in a pronounced and recognisable identity. The successive exhibitions form a timeline that is synchronised with the gallery’s evolution.

For the art publication Between Forms of Representation and Interpretation, Lesley Moore made a typographic interpretation of the eponymous work of Andrés Ramírez Gaviria. Gestalt theory – “greater than the sum of its parts” — plays an important role in the work of this Colombian artist. Lesley Moore embroidered on this theme by using deconstructed typography throughout the book.

Each letter is separated into three elements: vertical lines; curves and diagonals; and horizontal lines. Using a separate page to close each segment means that the title of each work can only be read when two consecutive semi-transparent pages are superimposed. Following the same line of thought, the abstract cover forms a conceptual translation of the title of the book, expressed only in verticals.

Beyond the cliché – that was the starting point for the graphic design of the Gerrit Rietveld exhibition at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.

For Rietveld, “the space between the frames” formed the essence of his iconic Red Blue Chair - and Lesley Moore based its concept on this idea. Applying the same principle to an image of the chair allowed its characteristic dowel joints to fall away, leaving only their projecting yellow edges.

Against a deep blue background, these represent, literally as well as figuratively, the universe according to Rietveld’s thinking. The custom font comes from the same thought process, and serves as a unifying element for the various text elements within the exhibition.

Can an architecture publication look as good as a fashion magazine? In 2007, Mark magazine, a bimonthly international glossy on architecture, broke away from the dry, archaic approach of its competitors. A lively combination of generously sized images, playful and experimental typography and a one-off approach to each and every issue made every number a sought-after collector’s item.

With Mark’s distinctive, high-impact covers, based on reworking existing images by hand, and its muscular logo, also designed by Lesley Moore, the magazine set the tone for a new way of communicating architecture – rich, seductive, surprising and inviting – without alienating the traditional readership.

A daily comment on the news, contained in a single image and made in a few hours.

Gorilla, a column in images created by a design collective consisting of De Designpolitie, Herman van Bostelen and Lesley Moore, first graced the front page of Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant in 2006. The language of the column stems from sampling existing symbols, icons, flags and more. A Gorilla asks a question or posts a comment.

At its birth a novelty, the Gorilla of today can be found weekly in De Groene Amsterdammer. The columns have been collected in two books. Over the course of time, a number of iconographic images have emerged — one of them being the map of the Netherlands as a character acting out events involving the country. For example, when news headlines announced a further hardening in policy towards asylum seekers, the Netherlands appeared as a hermetically sealed bastion.

The Logo Machine proves that a house style can be dynamic, recognisable and democratic. The idea in developing Lesley Moore’s own identity was to create not a frozen-in-time visual, but a different approach to the logo.

The ingredients of the Logo Machine are defined by a palette which allows every visitor to the website to draw on a vast range of graphic elements. Stickers of the resulting LM logos are used to adorn business cards and post. The result? A constantly changing logo that displays the identity of the studio in a series of specific moments. So far, the bank contains over 4,000 different LM logos.