A generative design system developed for the Nihon Matsuri festival in Bern, producing dynamic poster variations from a single codebase. Built in p5.js, the system combines traditional Japanese visual elements like sakura motifs, geometric patterns, and seasonal imagery into algorithmically composed layouts, each unique while maintaining a coherent brand identity across colour palettes and formats. The work explores how generative methods can serve cultural contexts with precision: balancing algorithmic variation with aesthetic restraint, and ensuring that every output respects the visual language it references. The system scales from print to digital applications without loss of integrity.
Beyond the posters themselves, I wanted visual material that shows the identity once more in the bustle of everyday life: on a city light at the roadside, on a screen in a busy station hall and on the festival website, where it has to hold its own among everything else competing for attention.
The tool is designed so that the area of the key visual can be set. This always leaves a typography safe space, or lets the designer decide where it sits, so the text never loses its legibility.
