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Poster Series for Platforma Wolff 2024 Summer Parties

Category

2025

Poster

Awarded

Designer / Designers / Design Studio / Agency

Client

Year

Teodor Bradu

Platforma Wolff

2024

Other Credits

—

Short description

Long description

Part of a larger series of posters I made last year for some electronic music events, that took place at Platforma Wolff. I used a mix of grid fixed typography that helped me set up the “stage” for bold illustrations, exploring concepts like reverse perspective and the perception of space.

Creating posters for electronic music parties every week might seem like the dream designer gig—cool people, top-tier artists, and a vast creative freedom. However, that freedom can sometimes be a double-edged sword. I find that setting some limitations, like using a grid and aligning elements, actually enhances my design process. It reduces the sense of being overwhelmed by too many choices and creates a kind of dialogue between the elements and me. The structure helps the final image come together more naturally. The underline of the typography creates a structural foundation, almost like a stage for the illustration to unfold. This subtle element guides my creative process and deeply influences my work. Additionally, I use the concept of reverse perspective to evoke the unique atmosphere of the parties and the perception of space, making the design feel more immersive.

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Foto: Mihai Ciobanu

Jury Notes

Process Notes: Teodor Bradu

We enjoyed the originality of the illustrations, which tell stories with humor and weirdness. At first, the visuals might seem raw and messy, but in reality they are very clean and intentional. The type has a brutalist and broken energy, scattered across the posters in a way that injects dynamism. The nonsensical illustrations take familiar elements and rearrange them into bizarre scenes, giving the posters a playful and entertaining character.

 

PV: Original illustrations with a good twist, that makes them really entertaining while also telling a story.

 

ML: It’s quite raw, but clean. It might look messy, but in fact it’s quite clean, and very fun.

 

JG: Everything about the posters is fun. The type is brutalist and raw, but it's broken and all mismatched and falling and kind of scattered, which gives it a lot of energy and then the illustrations are all fun because they are complete nonsense. They take lots of things which are familiar and then lay them out in an unfamiliar way, creating weird scenes.

Thinking about the journey from initial idea to the finished piece, which moments had the deepest impact on the project and what made you realise those changes had to happen?

When working for this series of posters, I never started with a clear mindset of what I am going to do. Like for the most of us, staring at a blank canvas can sometimes be intimidating, so I prefer setting up the typography elements first. I noticed how different names of artists create this interesting structures, how the underline matches the letterforms of the row below and decided then that this could be a good starting point, so I kinda let the type dictate a series of guidelines witch I later on considered as walls and spaces. 

Collaboration is built on trust and dialogue — within that process, which part of the project feels most authentically yours, and which unexpected voices pushed you beyond your comfort zone?

To be honest, I get a lot of creative freedom working in this part of the industry, so the straight answer would be – no, no client hand over my hand on my mouse this time. Of course there was a lot of trust involved but most of the time this freedom also comes with a lot of self criticism, so I guess I definitely heard some voices, ha haha. 

In what ways do you believe awards like LDA shape (or should shape) the design landscape locally? And is there a responsibility attached to being an awarded designer within that ecosystem?

Being a self taught designer, for me the impact was huge. I have the eyes to value works based on my own skills and know-how. It was really nice seeing what the jury thought was worth mentioning and exhibited. It gives designers like me sort of like a pin point to what is considered good work. It's also nice that you get to meet local designer that you follow online. This is my first actual design award, but I think every designer or artist is responsible for putting up their best work. Promoting work that feels closer to your interests can be a good way in having new projects that fit your skills and style. 

Whether placed in public space or circulating in digital environments, a poster must both inform and attract. How did you balance the clarity of the message with the expressive design needed to capture attention in such fast-paced contexts?

I wanted to keep the information as clear as possible, setting it black on white on the upper part of the layout. To keep it more integrated to the overall design, I used other illustrated elements inspired by the cool artist names. For example Jennifer Loveless made me think about a room where the only thing keeping you inside is music. For the one with Nick León I used a mad Peugeot logo. So there’s this back and forth there between what you read and what you see. 

What element of the poster (scale, colour, typography, image, texture) did you consider your boldest “move”? And which one was the quietest but most important?

I was going to keep the layout pretty much the same for the whole series so I decided that the image should take the stage. The slightest but most effective stroke was using inverted perspective, that’s often seen in old Byzantine icons. This created a sort of spiritual space that opens in front of the viewer rather than receding behind the image, making the scene feel present and real.

Did you encounter moments of “too much / too little” while working on the composition? How did you determine the balance point?

For me, most of those moments are more about too much, rather than too little. For this series I was aiming to get some clean compositions, so following those invisible guidelines on a white background really helped. I guess the balance point was set between the expected” and unexpected”, the on vs off grid, what feels close and what feels closer.

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