Julian Sonne Hansen

For Realdania, Boligøkonomisk videncenter, we worked on the three magazines Det Byggede Danmark (The Built Denmark). The magazines put spotlight on the hidden stories of the Danish built environment to let the Danes explore and think about the vital, and often hidden role of the built environment.

We worked with transforming the inaccessible raw data into inspiring pieces that contextualise the numbers in inviting and original infographics that open up a complex subject to the public.

Made together with Marte Viksmoen and Sini Salminen
Photo by Tuala Hjarnø and Torben Eskerod

The Circularity City initiative was created to gather businesses and organizations around the mid Jutland area to strengthen innovation skills within the companies, increase public demand for products and services, increase exports and create strong partnerships around the development of circular construction and smart neighbourhoods. 

The visual concept is an idea of Circularity City being a facilitator for this change. The logo acquires its visual shape by being a little bit of a circular design in itself by reusing the letters from circularity to spell out city. This district shape creates a space inside the wordmark. A living space that can be filled out by different kinds of projects, partnerships and innovations, but always with Circularity City as the facilitator. 

Zimmer — a highly-legible and simple sans-serif font —squarely fits into the mould of classical neo-grotesque typefaces. Zimmer is, however, still relatively narrow and is inspired by both early grotesque and humanist typefaces. The result: an idiosyncratic typeface that works equally well for text and for display. And the name? It’s inspired by Paul Auster books, highway signs, and the fear of flying.

Here is featured two examples of Zimmer in use on Gestalten, An international publishing house, and Freytag Anderson, Scottish Design Agency.

The Discover magazine is an bi- and triannual magazine for both the Cement and Mining industries. The magazine explores the latest technology and trends as well as thought leadership stories about solutions that might inspire clients and partners. 

As part of the rebrand of FLSmidth, the magazine also got a revamp, changing its name from Highlights to Discover, changing the format and working on the overall structure and design of the magazine. 

Working closely with the in-house team, we began working with a new concept: discovering potential. A concept highlighting the small things that make a huge impact. We brought in a new approach to photography, illustration and data visualizations, that is a lot more varied and vivid and one that pushes the boundaries of what is expected of a industry magazine in the mining and cement industries. 

How do you brand the first restaurant in Denmark to serve what is known as Stone Age food?

The name is simple and straightforward, while communicating the nordic heritage. Today the name Palæo has become equally synonymous with the diet itself.

The visual identity reflects the inspiration from the Stone Age, while also being inspired by subcultures. The focal point of the identity is the bespoke typeface that blends runic inspiration with futuristic typography.

Today Palæo has opened several restaurants as well as launching a range of ready meals.

So You Need A Typeface is an infographic that touches the subject of choosing the right typeface for a project. 

The list is (very loosely) based on the top 50 of the Top100 Best Schrieften by Font Shop.

Musikkens Hus opened its doors in Aalborg, Denmark in 2013. The iconic building (by Coop Himmelb(l)au) houses the Aalborg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Music Conservatory of Aalborg as well as the Institute of Music of Aalborg University. On top of that, Musikkens Hus houses four different concert halls.

After interviewing future users of the house I found out that they didn't really care that much about the fancy architecture. What they cared about was the music that was to be played in the house, and the collaborations between the musicians, the guests and the students. 

The concept of the identity was that the visual identity should reflect what all of the users had in common: a love for music. 

Because a large palette of different music was intended to be played in the house, I wanted the identity to focus on music in general. Inspired by the way nodes jump about on a node sheet I made a dynamic logo and a typographic system to match that was inspired by this. The result is a visual identity that is open, dynamic and ever changeable, just like the building itself, a place that honors music.  

Musikkens Hus is a self-chosen school project at the Danish School of Media.

Pictures on program, posters as well as some on website from Nikolaj Lund http://www.nikolajlund.com/

A selection of logomarks and logotypes that I’ve designed