Post Hoc

Post hoc by Dane Mitchell was presented by Creative New Zealand at The Venice Biennale 2019.

For Post Hoc we created a brand that balances the aesthetically confronting and the poetic. Representing a complex, multi-layered and intricately faceted project in a simple, accessible and iconic way to draw in the general public whilst retaining enough intrigue and nuance to gain the respect of the cultural elite.

Dane Mitchell’s Post hoc consists of a vast inventory of bygone, disappeared, lost and extinct things broadcasted from the New Zealand Pavilion to multiple locations across Venice via industrially produced, aesthetically awkward, tree cell towers. The countless inventory of things-no-more are also simultaneously printed out — filling the vast, emptied library of a Venetian palazzo over the course of the six-month exhibition.

This jarring combination of Venetian patina, poetic loss and pretend trees is captured through the combining of earthy tones and materials with an acidic nuclear green. The awkward form of the fake tree is simplified into an icon that links the multi-faceted experience together across Venice. Broadcast is evoked through the repeating line work in the wordmark, which is activated digitally as an animated gif. Concepts of the visible and invisible are referenced throughout the experience through tone-on-tone material finishes.

The act of listing and inventory is referenced typographically throughout, with the list-of-lists running throughout the publication (as well as being presented as a poster on the brochure’s verso), in the way the footnotes dominate the text & via the stylistic nod to philosopher Baudrillard’s list-making device of box and line.

Best Awards 2019: Finalist: Small Brand Identity, Editorial & Books.