Crisp, fun and emblematic of The Simpsons: Daily Dialogue’s new identity for Converse’s Push

Since January 2019, Daily Dialogue has grown. With a few more people added to its roster of studio talent, Maximilian Schachtner and his Munich-based team have, over the course of a year, worked on a bundle of new collaborations and projects – this includes the identity for Place Mag, a multi media website for company Cap Dept, three publications for Neues Museum Nürnberg, two identities for clothing brand Zara plus an upcoming catalogue for the Hauberk Foundation. To say Daily Dialogue has been busy would be an understatement.

What really caught our eye this time around, however, is its new identity for Converse’s new cultural skate program Push, based in Berlin. A monthly event that strives to integrate music, sport and art – supported by Place Mag, skateboarding store Civilist Berlin and market Yaam Berlin with an open skate school – the identity needed to represent as such. To begin, Daily Dialogue started with the logotype and the integration of the classic Converse logo. “The main components of the design are illustrations, which always refer to the topic of the sessions,” Maximilian tells It’s Nice That. “We went for a crisp, light-hearted identity, gradually developing itself with every Push happening.”

With parts that resemble the familiar, cheerful and cloudy introduction to The Simpsons (minus the multi-hued colour palette), this edition to the ever-evolving identity for Push takes on a friendly and monochromatic aesthetic – one that was developed since the KantineKiosk identity from 2016 where the “combination of straight typographic design and sometimes funny illustrations have become a strong recogniser for the studios work,” Maximilian adds. Therefore the Push identity evolved from this experimental and free approach, all the while adhering to a strong and structured framework, similar to that of Daily Dialogue’s previous activities – like the design for skateboarding culture publication Place Mag that sees skateboarding tropes shunned and new-found ways of representing the sporting subculture come into the fore. “For every event there is a fresh topic that needs to be illustration,” he continues, “and it’s always good fun to let the mind flow and interpret the new topic in different ways.”

This playful approach design is at the heart of the studio’s ethos: one that’s “based on a social and family friendly structure,” says Maximilian, stating how its two partners both have children and therefore advocate a balance between child care and work. “We don’t work late and on weekends,” he adds, “therefore the studio needs to be efficient.” Achieved through a clear approach to design and work ethic from the get-go, this goal has been made possible. “We are trying to make every project valuable for the client and ourselves. This includes a big investment into the project, and means that we can’t shy way from confrontations and discussions.”

Keen advocates for a healthy work-life balance, those at Daily Dialogue are clearly doing something right. By continuing to challenge abilities by creating “better and bigger projects” and continuing to nurture relationships with clients, the team is resultantly expanding as they seek out new and exciting projects. What’s more is that Maximilian established a record label with Martin Brugger in 2019, titled Squama. Centring on – but most certainly not limiting to – contemporary forms of jazz, it has since released two records, and are planning many more to be launched this year, plus merch, of course. “In Squama you can see a lot of what we learned in creating Daily Dialogue. Squama is combing a high-quality approach in the quality of music and design – it’s fun and exciting to use our experience in another field and building something new.”

Future plans will inevitably involve music, sports, plus more identities, catalogues, websites and magazines – “we will keep on marrying our punk approach with clean and high-quality typographic graphic design as you know it from us.”