Wedge collaborate with Oumayma B. Tanfous on Indigo’s ‘Turn the Page’ back-to-school campaign

Beginning as a bookshop, Indigo has become Canada’s largest cultural department store, offering modern home and lifestyle objects alongside their literary collection. In the run-up to the world getting back-on-track after the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigo worked with Montreal-based design studio Wedge on the concept and design of their physical and digital back-to-school campaign, ‘Turn The Page.’

Initially working with Indigo’s existing brand identity, created by Bruce Mau, Wedge joined forces with Indigo’s Chief Creative Officer Nathan Williams (ex-Kinfolk Magazine) to evolve and somewhat broaden the brand in a newly spirited direction. “We worked with Nathan and the executive team to evolve certain elements such as typography, colour, and art direction for this campaign,” Co-founder and Creative Director Sarah Di Domenico tells us, “to kick up the energy and achieve a more contemporary and optimistic tone,” she explains. “Behind the scenes, we're working together on a larger scale mandate,” Di Domenico adds, “something quite special.”

The brand’s existing typeface Futura is prominently used throughout the campaign, conveying the classic and timeless sensibilities associated with it. “The playful arrangement on the images brings an energy to words, and a rhythm and emotion to the message,” Di Domenico explains, “which invites people to go back, differently.”

Providing further vibrancy to the campaign is the photography of New York-based creative Oumayma B. Tanfous, whose eye for individuality is powerfully used as the premise for ‘Turn The Page.’ “When we work with photographers, stylists, and any sort of partner,” Di Domenico tells us, “they're specifically chosen to join us in bringing a vision to life”, recalling their collaboration, having worked with Tanfous from Wedge’s early days as a studio. “We have always admired her ability to apply an artfulness and sensitivity that works in a mass commercial context,” Di Domenico recalls, “this tension was necessary for a nationally beloved, household name like Indigo,” she adds, “where you come to expect a certain level of approachability and quality.”

These commercial and creative sensibilities are not lost in the series for Indigo, with each photograph serving as its own individual short story focusing on a single character. “Each scene is meticulously planned towards a larger narrative” and fundamentally inclusive in its execution, Di Domenico concludes.

Wedge

Indigo