Summer Night Ball – Visual Identity & Campaign Design

Every summer, Migros Engagement transforms Zurich’s main train station into a dazzling open-air ballroom, hosting the Summer Night Ball – a beloved event that brings thousands together to dance under the stars. Since 2019, I have been designing the visual identity of the event in close collaboration with Daniel Hertli from Komun GmbH.

After an intensive redesign of the corporate identity, we now create new campaigns within this visual framework each year. At first, we explored countless creative directions—testing, suggesting, discarding ideas—only to find ourselves returning to where it all began: pure typography. This typographic simplicity, used in the very first edition of the new ball, had a clarity and strength we didn’t want to lose. It felt wrong to push it into the background.

That’s when we had the idea: what if the campaign visuals were just a simple ball—graphically, but also conceptually? The shape is 2D-generated and feels intentionally flat, allowing the typography to stand calmly beside it and speak for itself. We enjoyed playing with colour and composition, and of course, we appreciated the delightful coincidence that in German, Ball means both a dance event and a round object.

So the following year, edition number two, we added a second ball—naturally. All good things come in threes, and the third year followed suit. We wanted to pursue this concept long enough for its depth and rhythm to become visible and meaningful to viewers and guests alike.

Now in its fourth year, the project continues—and it's still exciting to see how this simple form transforms into new and dynamic posters through nothing more than multiplication and colour variation.

Beyond the updated typographic identity, each edition includes a full suite of campaign materials: posters, animations for city screens and social media, on-site stage visuals, and even Migros tote bags, where the ball is printed using special ink techniques.

And so the dance goes on. The ball is open!