north rhine medical academy
for professional development and training,
visual identity
düsseldorf, 2020

dissonant dots

something‘s slipped out of place. the two dots, the umlaut over the lower-case „a“, are obviously too far to the left. which sets up a tension. instantly the eye wants to shift the dots to the right, to what looks like their proper place, because that would produce „ä“ - an „a“ with an umlaut, a familiar sight in german. the human eye - or, really, the human brain - looks out for learned and familiar things everywhere, whether that be a structure (four almost circular shapes), a face (:o) or indeed a letter (ä). this logo makes active use of that instinct - naturally we read an „ä“ even with the slightly displaced dots, but we also see an „a“ without the umlaut, so we see both things at once, an „ä“ and „a“ – which happen to be the two initial letters of this organisation. appropriately, too, for a training organisation, a micro-scale education process has taken place: we see things anew, identifying and making connections. structure, image and letter generate a dissonance that demands interpretation - a simple letter and two dots become a complex communicative whole.