Contemporary Art Foundation

A vibrant visual identity, print and web design, and a powerful entry submission and multi-stage screening web service for one of Japan's premier art awards.

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  • design-icon Created with Sketch.

    Design - Identity, print materials, announcement webpage, web service UI/UX design.

  • development-icon Created with Sketch.

    Development - Ruby on Rails web service, multimedia asset storage with Cloudinary, Heroku pipeline infrastructure, Excel exports.

  • Support - Yearly support for feature improvements and service setup for each new contest.

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  • design-icon Created with Sketch.

    Design - Identity, print materials, announcement webpage, web service UI/UX design.

  • development-icon Created with Sketch.

    Development - Ruby on Rails web service, multimedia asset storage with Cloudinary, Heroku pipeline infrastructure, Excel exports.

  • Support - Yearly support for feature improvements and service setup for each new contest.

Visit the website

Founded by art lover and collector Yusaku Maezawa, CEO of ZOZO, Inc., Contemporary Art Foundation plays an important role in the Japanese and international art world. Their yearly prize event for art students, the Contemporary Art Foundation Award, has been gaining attention in recent years, with an increasing number of entries and growing media focus.

The CAF team approached Tacchi to produce an updated identity, print documents, and webpage for the event, alongside a powerful web application allowing entrants to quickly and easily submit their artworks for consideration and the CAF team and judges to review them.

The result was a nearly threefold increase in the number of students submitting creations, and a much more time-efficient and easy to manage process for the CAF team and the judges to select the finalists and eventual winners.

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Identity design

We started with a discovery process, where we worked with the CAF team to map out a selection of key concepts that they would like to communicate or associate with the prize. We also researched existing designs out in the wild, including other events, organizations, print designs, and more, ensuring we had a feel for the aesthetic approach that would fit their vision.


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other Candidate Stylescapes

We then took that information and, using an iterative process, explored a number of possible opportunities for the identity. A key element to this process is the creation of "stylescapes".


Stylescapes are mood-board-like documents that focus on applying a candidate identity design (logo, colours, typography, photography, motifs, and so on) to the contexts it will be used in. In the case of this project, these included ensuring the identity would work well on the announcement web page, the web service, posters, catalogues, the wall of the event space, and even the trophy given to the winners!


After reviewing the stylescapes for the candidate identities with the CAF team, the chosen approach was selected. The final artwork was then created, ready for printing and including on the web.

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The selected Stylescape

The first usage of this new identity was in the announcement page, poster, and flyer we also created as part of this project. During the event, we were thrilled to also see the identity in large print on the wall of the gallery.

The final identity in use

Submission and screening
web application

A primary goal of the web application was to increase the number of entries for the prize by making it easier for students to submit their artworks.

In previous years the CAF team had been accepting submissions from students via post. In addition to completing a paper submission form, this often included printing photos or burning CDs containing images, video, or audio files.

Providing an online platform for submissions reduced this friction, resulting in higher submission numbers than targeted.

The other goal was to reduce the time spent by the CAF team and the prize's judges when screening the submissions for inclusion in the finalist group.

Handling the printed submission forms and media was both complex, time consuming, and error prone.

Having a custom online system designed for this process resulted in less time spent compared to previous years, even though there were many more submissions!

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key features

Support for multiple phases

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  • desktop-and-mobile-responsive-icon

    Responsive layouts for effective use on both desktop and mobile browsers for all users.

  • video-and-image-upload-icon

    Student uploading of multiple images, videos, or audio files. Integration with Youtube and Vimeo. Easy viewing by the CAF team and judges.

  • security-icon

    A secure method for students to submit their works without having to create an account, but with the ability to edit a submission up to the closing time.

  • automation-icon

    Automatic enabling and disabling of submissions at pre-defined opening and closing times for the student submission phase.

  • excel-export-icon

    Excel exports for the CAF team and judges to share and archive.

  • protection-icon

    Protections at all phases of the screening process to ensure no human errors can occur.

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Let's talk about working together!

Tell us a little about your business and what you'd like to achieve. We'll be in touch to follow up as soon as we can!