How Letters Come Alive: Atelier AAAAA's identity for Mixt

Paris studio Atelier AAAAA has created the identity for Mixt, a brand-new multidisciplinary performing arts venue in Nantes, and it grows from something as small as a grain of pollen. I feel like sneezing just thinking about it.

Mixt puts on events in its various performance halls and studios, but it also goes out to the wider community across the Loire-Atlantique region. It's this spreading of art and culture beyond its physical building that inspired the theme behind the identity. Something about the cosmos and when you look at it through a microscope, everything is composed of particles.

As such, AAAAA introduced Pollen, a custom typeface made in collaboration with type designer Anne-Dauphine Borione. Far from conventional, each character is constructed from modular shapes with small repeated units that cluster together to form letterforms. The inspiration was microscopic photography of pollen grains, with their incredible variety of surface textures and structures.

Atelier AAAAA's Pollen typeface displaying letters and words constructed from modular dots and shapes on a black background

Two printed materials for Mixt arts venue showing the custom Pollen typeface made from clustered particle-like shapes in vibrant yellow, pink, blue and green colours on colourful speckled backgrounds

Promotional leaflet for Mixt venue showing yellow and turquoise textured design with event details and a site map indicating entrances and facilities

The modules themselves can be swapped, which means the typeface can shift its personality depending on the event or season it represents.

Alongside the typeface, AAAAA developed a second visual language, which they call Vibration. Working from photographs and other image sources, they apply a "raster processing technique" that transforms conventional imagery into dense, organic tapestries: plant-like surfaces full of detail and coloured in Mixt's vivid pop palette.

Just like any art venue, the brand is properly tested when it has to cope with a constantly changing programme of events. We're talking posters and brochures, and digital assets. They needed to hand something over so that the Mixt team could create their own materials.

Hand holding a letterheaded document with orange "mixt" text, alongside an exterior wall decorated with red and gold circular shapes

Wayfinding signpost at Mixt venue with yellow symbol and directional signs pointing to toilets, cloakroom and accessible facilities, beside white metal stairs

Two posters for Mixt venue hang on a concrete wall above a wooden sculptural bench, featuring photographs and the custom Pollen typeface designed by Atelier AAAAA

Three vertical banners on a brick building displaying the Pollen typeface in different colours, with letters constructed from clustered modular shapes

That's why AAAAA made everything modular on every level. For example, posters are built on block compositions that can be easily swapped around. These also rely on typography and colour rather than performance photography, which could end up being costly for an independent arts venue. And the colour palette is restricted to three hues, giving enough distinctive between events without any overwhelm.

The brochures follow the same logic but adds textures for different times of year – warmer palettes for autumn programming, cooler tones for winter, creating a range of effects across the seasons. Finally, wayfinding throughout the building brings the whole thing together on glass surfaces.