Coll & Cortés

Visual identity.

Coll and Cortés is an art gallery that was founded by Jorge Coll and Nicolàs Cortès in 2005 and specializes in Spanish polychrome wood sculpture as well as painting, tapestry, furniture, and works in silver and ivory.

Unconventional created the gallery’s new Visual Identity through a logo that reflected its vocation and its background as a specialist in 16th century art, showing work by Leone Leoni, Guglielmo della Porta and Giambolonga, and its mission to remind art lovers how important and popular these works were in their day.

The design of the logo is based on Renaissance style letters and the inscriptional lettering of the classical period, especially the inscriptions on Roman monuments that Albrecht Dürer studied in his treatise “On the just Shaping of Letters”.

Stationery
Publications.

To mark a presentation of the work of Pedro de Mena at Frieze Masters in London and at the European Fine Art Fair, Maastricht, Coll&Cortés produced a publication on the artist and the art direction of the photographs of the works owned by the gallery.

The graphic design of the book established a template for the design and generation of content for the gallery’s subsequent publications.
The work of sixteenth century Spanish sculptor Pedro de Mena changed the style of Spanish polychrome wood sculpture at the time, setting it on a new course.

Art Direction.
De Mena painted his sculptures in his own studio, endowing them with a chromatic strength that thus far had been rare. He heightened the sense of realism about his pieces by exaggerating the folds in the clothes, the marks of the wounds on the skin and the details of the hair and face that he would sometimes complement by adding little fragments of glass or real hair.

Unconventional represented that dramatic force by setting the sculptures against a dark grey, almost black background that outlined the silhouettes naturally, bringing out all the details.
The apparent lack of lighting is redolent of the natural interior of the churches and cathedrals in which these sculptures were placed when they were made.
Invitations and posters.
Unconventional designed a set of posters and invitations for the various exhibition openings, creating a customised, highly distinctive style.

Website and newsletters.
The website and newsletters were designed in line with agreed criteria regarding clarity and simplicity – the website had to be easy to navigate – letting the works of art speak for themselves.