Together with Universal Music and composer Peter Nordahl, we dug deep into the archives to find unique and relevant cues to the creative idea for the project. For the first time in Swedish music, the original vocal track was separated from the analogue recordings to achieve a completely new soundscape. Since the vocals on the album are original recordings, the conductor together with the entire symphony orchestra with its many musicians, had to follow Ted Gärdestad’s voice and pace live while recording on 120 channels using 110 microphones. The visual identity takes inspiration from the music and lyrics and the result grew to have many layers, symbolizing the music’s note sheets, movement and flow. It also represents the collaboration between the different parties involved.

The project has appealed to a wide and diverse Swedish audience on an emotional level and has been a success to the public and critics alike.

We deliberately chose not to use any old imagery of Ted Gärdestad, since this easily could become a sentimental and nostalgic expression and wouldn’t reflect the new ambitious take on the familiar songs. Instead, we created a visual world focusing on what was new:the rewritten arrangements. The system is highly recognizable yet flexible where each song has its unique composition based on the notes - thousands of dots and an equal amount of lines. In motion, the elements embody scenes drawn from lyrics that flow with the music and follow it’s dynamics. Black is used for singles and white for the album. The production aspects were important since they needed to reflect the incredible attention to detail that went into the remastering of the music.  

Scope:

-CD cover, LP cover, Thumbnail for streaming services

-Poster

-Communication (print, banner, social media ads)

-Animated material (film for social media)

-Programme sheet

-Website

The album and the visual identity concept that frames the ambitious project have contemporized Ted Gärdestad and created clear stand-out. The project has been praised by a wide public and critics alike and has helped to find new listeners, including the studio’s born-again love for the music created by Ted. A previously unreleased track, Alice, was also discovered in the process and included on the album.

The single ”Sol, vind och vatten" went straight into the Swedish music charts (Svensktoppen) and is after 40 weeks still no. 1.

The live concerts were quickly sold out and a nationwide tour has now been scheduled for the summer.

The album was nominated in the Swedish Grammis award, Swedens biggest music award in the category ”Folk music / singer-songwriter”.

The identity for the new album has also become the collection photo for the artist Ted Gärdestad’s rich catalogue on Spotify.

Universal Music (Stories label) approached us with a request: they wanted us to create a visual concept around the remastering and the new album of Ted Gärdestad, one of Sweden’s most well-known and beloved recording artists, recomposed by Peter Nordahl. Our goal and ambition was to create something timeless and pure, worthy of the music heritage that Ted together with his brother Kenneth left behind when Ted died in 1997. The concept needed to be scalable to work across record covers, thumbnails, printed communication, social media and on stage. The brief was also to make Ted feel ’alive’ and to convey real attention to details.

Budget: € 25,000