Cullberg & Riksteatern
We’ve developed a completely new visual identity and graphic language for Cullberg, a Stockholm-based, internationally renowned dance company.
The guiding concept was to represent the near-paradoxical idea of an institution in constant motion. The institution, with its weight of history and artistic authority is symbolised by the serif typeface of the logotype, but the logotype itself refuses to conform to the expectations of mere respectability. It won’t keep still. It shifts, twitches and ricochets within its delineated limits — the outer letters, C and G.
In certain video applications, the individual letters of the logo are tracked to individual dancers, doggedly shadowing them as they move in the dance, sometimes erratically, sometimes beautifully, but never boringly.
On the Cullberg website it appears as an interactive element, to be manipulated by fingertip or cursor. Even in its most static form, not all of the letters of the logo are fully visible, we can’t fully capture what can’t be captured.
This approach, using just two typefaces and a simple graphic line, creates an evolving system with both rigidity and adaptability, something non-static, able to be developed and explored over time, in step with Cullberg itself.
The headlines for example echo the logo by changing the typeface for the first and last letter of each title. A subtle and unusual way to combine two typefaces — and also a little jarring — in order to both challenge and play with tradition and experimentation without losing communicative clarity.
Creative direction and design: Riitta
Video and motion: Team Tony
Website design/development: Fredrik Westberg, Eternity Group
Interactive logotype/creative coding: Clara Terne and Murilo Polese
Still photography: Carl Thorborg
Riitta design&AD assistant 2026: Otis Huss
Riitta design&AD assistant 2025: Stina Karlberg
The identity is being rolled out during 2026, more applications and updates to come.