Hasta La Ideas

Creative agency Studio Output has designed a set of six promotional posters for nightclub Ministry of Sound that will be displayed at 100 London Underground stations.

The posters feature black and white pictures of clubbers at MOS nights taken by street photographer Paul Bence, who spent each Friday and Saturday there for three months. Each image shows a different moment in a club night, from a couple chatting before midnight to a crowd dancing with their hands in the air at 3.00am and one clubber’s 5 o’clock struggle to stay awake.
The photographs are intended to give the public a genuine glimpse into what goes on behind MOS’s famous doors by using real people at real events, according to Studio Output’s creative team, which was led by creative director Dan Moore and designer Mike Lythgoe. Of course, these real people are also beautiful but in ad campaigns, they always are.

In a nod to the club’s musical heritage, each photograph is accompanied by a slogan in bold yellow type taken from a famous house track, from Justice vs Simian’s We Are Your Friends to The Chemical Brothers’s Hey Boy Hey Girl.

The posters also feature the Ministry of Sound logo, a time stamp which places each image within a wider narrative of the night, details of the nearest tube station (Elephant & Castle) and the hashtag #mosmoments.

The typeface used for each slogan – House Industrie’s Chalet Comprime – is not MOS’s usual brand font, which Moore says lacked the desired impact. “[When designing the posters], it soon became evident that a classic condensed display font worked best,” he explains.

The posters were initially designed in black and white but after experimenting with colour, the team settled on yellow as it was also used in MOS’s iconic ‘Warning: Excessive Noise’ posters and forms part of their current branding scheme.

Bence was selected as photographer for his ability to capture atmospheric natural light in night-time environments, “and because we felt his work had a timeless feel that could help us tap into people’s memories, making the campaign not purely about the now,” says Moore.

Studio Output’s posters are simple but effective: the design is sleeker and more memorable than other MOS branding – such as the design used for its compilation albums – and by combining strong images with bold type, the agency created a memorable set of posters capable of standing out against the visual mayhem of the London Underground.

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