When, as a young student at Art College and art history lessons in particular, the finer points, usually drifted past us. I remembered a few key things that caught my imagination, such as the Pre-raphaelites and artists such as Caravaggio. But sadly, most of it was wasted on young art students.


I was aware of Goudí and the Modernisme movement and thought  "Gaudí?... Schmoudi!  Whatever!"  However, a recent trip to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona changed my opinion!


Gaudí is considered to be part of Modernism (I am not a big fan!), but for me his work goes a bit further. His inspiration came from nature, from visits to the mountains, caves and forests. Gaudí looked at organic and haphazard forms in nature and then somehow he found a way to incorporate these forms into his architecture, but in a very geometric way.

I learned about new geometric terms! Such as the hyperbolic paraboloid! The nave in the Sagrada Familia has hyperboloid vaults, inspired by trees. The pillars and branches symbolise trees rising up to the roof. (See above - Brilliant!) This study of nature somehow translated into using simple geometrical forms, essentially straight lines, circles and geometric curves, all of which I found fascinating... 

And all of this done in a time without any computers! This photo shows how Gaudi planned, formed, and calculated the Sagrada Familia. He uses strings, ties, and weights to simulate the columns and shape of the cathedral under complete tension. By flipping the image vertically, the columns in tension are changed to compression. Amazing! He considered every aspect of his creations in incredible detail, the ceramics, the stained glass, the ironwork...

Reading about the Sagrada Familia, nothing was done without a reason. Everything symbolised some aspect of the Catholic faith. Different parts of the temple were designed to provoke an emotion, to connect... All this connected with me, and this is how I feel when I design your visual identity... the choice of font, colour and layout is made for a reason and I just love to align things and make shapes...

So after wandering around the Sagrada Familia, taking far too many pictures! (The one below with light flooding through the stained glass windows is one of my favourites!) I found a new appreciation of Antoni Gaudí and how his work might influence my future design projects...