Open Jazz Festival
Thessaloniki, 2021
Prize (merit)
EBGE (Greek Design and Illustration Awards)
Thessaloniki Cultural Centre
Kostas Makrygiannakis
OJF 2021 was again part of the program of the Dimitria festival in Thessaloniki this year. Energy, perception, power and lyricism, spread throughout three special days full of Jazz.
With an imaginative line up of nine concerts and a high level roster of artists from Greece, France, Norway, USA, Cyprus and Germany.
Just like the complexity, improvisation and freedom of the art of Jazz music, this year’s OJF poster insists on the nature of Jazz music as a form of language. It communicates the improvisation, the surprise, the freedom of composition of Jazz music. With a clear reference to the forms of the “OJF” logo, the composition visually transforms the characters with a visual musicality. Thus, the letter J, to resonate in the viewer’s memory and is abstractly transformed into a saxophone, the asterisk is used in the composition, as a graphic reference to the idea and the improvisation.
Following the concept of freedom and the existence of no limits to the expression of Jazz music and culture, the visualization of the idea in the poster was carried out using a single acrylic paint (black), a large brush and a smaller one, creating the final composition. The final poster exudes capacity, brings strong contrasts and at the same time, flares in its lines but also subtle elements – just like Jazz’s compositions, fluctuations and soundscapes.