Shelter.
A Zürich techno movement built around immersion, art, and a queer-friendly community. The brief was to take a young promoter and give it the visual weight of an established label, then carry that identity across a fast-moving calendar of raves and club nights.
- Client
- Shelter Events · Zürich, CH
- Sector
- Techno events · Nightlife
- Role
- Brand & visual designer · Sole designer · Art direction to production
- Year
- 2024
An established label's weight, for a young promoter.
Shelter is a Zürich techno movement built around immersion, art, and a queer-friendly community. The brief was to take a young promoter and give it the visual weight of an established label, then carry that identity across a fast-moving calendar of raves and club nights.
I led the brand from concept through to delivery: defining the identity system, art-directing every campaign, and producing the full set of assets each event needed across Instagram, Facebook, Resident Advisor, and eventfrog.
A whole world hung off one character.
Shelter's whole world hangs off a single device: a gender-neutral 3D character. It signals the brand's inclusive, queer-friendly stance and gives every poster an instantly recognisable face. The logo carries vertical bars that double as the DJ cage central to the live shows, so the mark and the experience reinforce each other.
The visual language is deliberately narrow and high-contrast. Roughly 70% black for power and mystery, 30% red for passion and energy, with neon green and cloudy white as accents. That discipline lets each campaign feel distinct while still reading unmistakably as Shelter.
A compact, rule-driven system.
I built a tight, rule-driven system so the brand could scale across events without losing itself. Five parts, one recognisable whole.
Palette
A narrow, high-contrast set: black and two reds doing the heavy lifting, with two greens and two neutrals held back as accents.
Character
The gender-neutral 3D figure as the recurring hero image, lit in red and black.
Logo
A caged wordmark referencing the DJ booth, used as a consistent top-left anchor.
Voice
Movement, unity, love, courage. Confident and inviting rather than exclusive.
Layout
A fixed type hierarchy and information zones (event title, date, venue, line-up), so a poster could be rebuilt at any aspect ratio in minutes.
One system, every show, every format.
The same rules produced four visually distinct campaigns in under a year, each shipped in every format the promoter needed, in colour and black-and-white, across post, story, web, and listing sizes.
Shelter 001: launch rave
The debut event at Kraftwerk Zürich (09.03.2024), headlined by François X with Kander, Tigerhead, and Marcism. I designed the character key art and a staged rollout: individual artist announcements, a local DJ spotlight, a line-up reveal, paid ad variants in multiple ratios, and a retail promo. Each piece shipped in colour and black-and-white versions across post, story, web, and Facebook cover sizes.
Shelter Clubnight: Bagatelle
A recurring club night at Bagatelle Club, Zürich, headlined by NØRBAK. This campaign flexed the system into a co-branded context, carrying venue and partner logos while keeping the red-cage Shelter identity dominant.
Xmas Clubnight: EXIL
A festive-season club night at EXIL Zürich featuring Yanamaste, delivered as a full format pack: 1:1, 4:5, 9:16, Facebook banner, Resident Advisor, and eventfrog listings, each with character and text-led variants.
One Year Anniversary: EXIL
The brand's first-birthday show at EXIL Zürich. The anniversary lockup pushed the red accent harder to mark the milestone while holding the established layout, again exported across every required platform format.
Four campaigns, dozens of placements, one set of rules.
A coherent, recognisable identity that held up across four distinct campaigns and dozens of placements in under a year. Because the system was built around a fixed hierarchy and a tight palette, each new event could be produced quickly and consistently, in every format the promoter needed, from a single set of rules.
Need a brand that holds up across a calendar?
If you're running a fast-moving programme of events or launches and need one system that stays recognisable across every format, that's the kind of work I take. Send the rough shape and I'll come back within a working day.