Turning the table on Sophie Rubin

Sophie Rubin, 2025 Applied Arts Photography & Illustration Awards juror and co-founder and creative director of the multi-international award-winning Swiss design studio, WePlayDesign, and her partner Cédric Rossel, approach design with playful zeal resulting in experimental edgy work, whether visuals identity, posters, motion design, fonts, web design, signage, editorial and objects. Sophie shared their 2024 design work for "Far° festival et fabrique des arts vivants".

The visual identity and promotional materials for the 40th edition of the Far° festival et fabrique des arts vivants in 2024 highlight projects by artists from the contemporary performing arts scene, both in Switzerland and internationally.

Through the theme of "bivouacs", the developed visual universe questions humanity and its habits, questioning the role and usefulness of material objects that shape our daily lives.

The series of images invites us to shift our perspective in order to adopt a new outlook on the world around us, with the goal of opening the way to processes of transformation, change, or even metamorphosis. The typographic work, for its part, echoes the paths laid out, guiding the gaze.

Can you give us some "peeks" behind-the-scenes?

We imagined these bivouacs humans as a true experimental laboratory. By exploring and selecting objects and materials from our immediate surroundings, we aimed to cultivate a sustainable approach to the performing arts—ecologically, humanly, artistically, and socially. This process of research and transformation allowed us to create ephemeral yet meaningful compositions, where each element tells its own story and resonates with the whole.

Why is this particular project a fave?

This project was both creative, playful, human-centred, and rooted in social issues. It aimed to establish a visual and emotional connection with the audience through a graphic identity that resonated with the theme of the edition: Bivouacs. Inspired by the idea of ever-evolving forms, this identity transformed into "human bivouacs"—unique compositions blending bodies and objects. Accessible and open to interpretation, this work played on the element of surprise, inviting each individual to project their own imagination and sensitivity. Each figure thus became a space for multiple interpretations.

W: weplaydesign.ch | IG: @weplaydesign

Playful design at its best!