Schwetzingen SWR Festival

Classical music meets AI

Intro

Challenge

Approach

Impact

The Schwetzingen SWR Festival is one of Germany’s largest classical music festivals and the world’s largest classical radio and music festival. Every year, when the gardens bloom in May, the Baroque palace dating from 1752 becomes its unique venue. With a change in artistic direction, the festival is reinventing itself with a programme that puts a particular focus on young artists and classical works.

The challenge was to develop a visual identity that once again reflects the ambition of the festival’s modern programme and appeals to new, younger audiences. At the same time, the new brand identity needed to be distinctive in its own right while remaining flexible enough to work with changing seasonal themes from year to year.

For the redesign, the location itself became the core element of the visual identity. The layout of the palace gardens was transformed into a flexible design grid and a stage for a constantly evolving range of floral forms and patterns derived from the shapes of the Baroque palace architecture. With the help of AI, the flowers of the palace gardens were brought to life, expressing the annual theme “Seduction” in a highly poetic way.

The new brand identity for the Schwetzingen SWR Festival brings tradition and innovation into a contemporary visual language. Rooted in the festival’s rich heritage, the flexible design system turns its historic setting into a distinctive brand element – creating a strong and consistent presence across every touchpoint while opening the festival up to new audiences. In 2025, the identity was awarded the Red Dot: Best of the Best.

Brand Identity Systems

Motion Design

Brand Architecture

The historic location as the visual core

The Schwetzingen SWR Festival is one of Germany’s largest classical music festivals and the world’s largest classical radio and music festival. Every spring, when the gardens come into bloom, the Baroque palace dating from 1752 becomes its distinctive venue.

Gebäude Gelände SWR Schwetzinger Festspiele

Das alte Design der SWR Schwetzinger Festspiele

Gestaltungsrater des Rebrandings SWR Schwetzinger Festspiele

Strategische Herleitung des Gartens SWR Schwetzinger Festspiele

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The palace garden becomes a digital sea of flowers

Under Elector Carl II Theodor (1724–1799), the palace experienced its greatest period of flourishing. Renowned landscape architects transformed the palace gardens into a park admired across Europe, defined by the strict geometry of Versailles as well as elaborate extensions and one of Germany’s first gardens in the English landscape style. In this, the Elector proved to be a true pioneer of his time: even then, the palace gardens were freely accessible to the public rather than serving solely as a private retreat for him and his guests to enjoy hunting, music, ballet and theatre.

KI-generierte Blütenmotive der Schwetzinger Festspiele

For the 2024 annual theme “Seduction”, the flowers of the palace gardens were brought to life with the help of AI. As the garden remains part of the festival’s unique setting to this day, the physical garden was transformed into a digital sea of flowers. Across all analogue and digital touchpoints, colourful blossoms such as cherry blossom, coneflower and snapdragon came to life throughout the 2024 season, communicating the highlights of the festival.

Der Veranstaltungskalender der Schwetzinger Festspiele

Flagge im Wind vor blauem Himmel in dem Design der Schwetzinger Festspiele

Gestaltungsbeispiel Plakat vor beigem Hintergrund der Schwetzinger Festspiele

A modern programme for new audiences

The development of a flexible design system creates countless possibilities for expression, opening up the festival’s diverse and modern programme to new audiences while always making the unique location a central part of the communication experience. A stronger focus on digital media formats is designed in particular to attract younger audiences interested in culture and music.

Verschiedene Social Media Assets von dem Design der Schwetzinger Festspielen

Gestaltungsbeispiele und digitaler Ausschnitt auf einem Laptop der Schwetzinger Festspiele

Motion design as a visual and musical stage

Motion design gives the seasonal theme a high-impact presence and creates a clear connection between the digital space and the real-life festival experience. Through the interplay of forms, particularly in motion, a kind of visual and musical metamorphosis emerges.

Bannerwerbung vor einem Gebäude mit verschiedenen Motiven und Designs der Schwetzinger Festspiele

Ein Stoffbeutel bedruckt mit orangen Farben und der Gestaltung der Schwetzinger Festspiele

Gestaltung eines Plakats der Veranstaltung Spanische Nacht der Schwetzinger Festspiele

Lanyard Gestaltung der Schwetzinger Festspiele

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“Thanks to an exceptionally strong collaboration, we were able to take the Schwetzingen SWR Festival to a new level. Strategic clarity, creativity and design finesse created a new identity that perfectly captures the essence of the event and takes it into entirely new territory. We are grateful for a fantastic collaboration that we valued far beyond the final result.”
Werner Pastula Head of SWR Brand Management and Design