Lareu & Gonzalez — When Identity Comes Before Graphic Design

Sep 25

3 min read

Before the logo, typography or layout, something already exists.

A material. A way of building. A palette of colours. Gestures, proportions, references. Sometimes, a particular way of photographing an object or inhabiting a space.

For a fashion house, designer or architect, identity often precedes graphic design. It is already present in the objects produced, the spaces imagined, the choice of materials or the way a project presents itself.

Graphic design then serves less to invent this world than to isolate certain traits and give them another form.

At Lareu & Gonzalez, this act of reading often comes before the visual identity takes shape. Rather than applying a recognisable signature from one project to the next, the studio seems to look for what already belongs to each project before translating it into graphic form.

Typography is embedded in the material.

Michael Tapia — Brand identity: Lareu & Gonzalez.

Reading Before Designing

The work begins with observation.

Before choosing a typeface, colour or composition, the task is to understand what holds a project together: the elements that recur, those that genuinely structure its identity, and those that are merely details.

Clues can come from a material, a geographical reference, a method of making or a particular use of colour. Not all of them can become graphic elements.

To read a world is already to edit it: to retain certain characteristics, leave others in the background, then determine what can move from one language to another.

A material does not have to become a texture. An object does not have to become a symbol. A reference does not have to become a motif.

What matters may lie elsewhere: in proportion, rhythm, economy of means, a way of bringing forms together or leaving space.

Graphic design can then begin not so much with what the project shows, but with the logic that organises it.

The identity carries through to the smallest detail.
The image carries the identity’s restraint further.
The landscape becomes the first visual material.

Jacquemus — Brand identity: Lareu & Gonzalez.

Translating Without Illustrating

Understanding a world does not mean reproducing its forms literally.

An interior does not become a graphic identity simply by retaining its colours. An object does not necessarily translate through its silhouette. A collection does not need to be reproduced for its character to remain perceptible.

Translation requires a certain distance.

A proportion can become a rhythm. A construction can suggest a grid. A sense of restraint can reappear in the space left around an image or text.

On a page as in a space, hierarchy, negative space, scale and repetition change the way a form is perceived.

Graphic design, then, does not always seek to resemble the project it accompanies. Rather, it tries to preserve certain qualities.

That distance also allows it to evolve. An identity too closely tied to a particular aesthetic risks ageing with it. Built around more enduring principles, it can evolve with the project without losing coherence.

Typography structures the printed object.
The object and its image share the same vocabulary.

Atelier de Troupe — Branding & packaging: Lareu & Gonzalez.

From Identity to Language

Coherence does not require uniformity.

Typography, imagery and layout do not need to remain identical across every context to belong to the same whole.

As in an interior, a vocabulary can remain recognisable while changing configuration. A material is not used in the same way on a floor as on a piece of furniture. A proportion shifts with scale. Yet continuity remains.

Graphic design works in much the same way.

A composition can become denser or quieter. An image can fill the entire space or almost disappear. What remains is not necessarily the repetition of the same element, but a consistent way of organising the relationships between them.

Identity then becomes less a formula than a language.

Precise enough to remain legible. Open enough to keep evolving.

The layout carries the object’s restraint into print.
Typography becomes composition.
The same vocabulary unfolds across different media.

Desmar — Brand identity & stationery: Lareu & Gonzalez.

Lareu & Gonzalez, When Graphic Design No Longer Needs to Assert Itself

Some identities do not need to demand immediate attention.

They can also feel as though they naturally belong to what they accompany.

A typeface finds its place beside an object. A composition extends the rhythm of a space. The image, the medium and the project seem to share the same vocabulary.

Graphic design no longer appears as a layer added afterwards.

It simply becomes part of how the project is perceived.

This is also what makes Lareu & Gonzalez’s work particularly clear: not a style repeated from one project to the next, but a way of looking before intervening.

Graphic design does not always invent an identity.

It can also reveal the one that was already there.