VIVA LA VIDA(VLV) | Personal Branding
VLV is a Seoul-based creative agency bringing together photographers and filmmakers to produce photoshoots, album covers, and music videos for musicians and models. The brand concept draws from Frida Kahlo's painting Viva la Vida — a work about vitality, passion, and the hunger for life and art. That spirit needed to come through in every element of the identity.
Design approach
The geometric VLV monogram — angular diamond forms stacked into an interlocking mark — provides a deliberate counterpoint to the raw, painterly texture of Kahlo's work used as the brand's visual backdrop. The tension between the precise mark and the expressive imagery behind it reflects what the agency does: bringing craft and structure to inherently emotive, artistic work. The wordmark appears in two forms — clean all-caps for formal use, and a tricolor version quietly nodding to the colors of Kahlo's world. The name card carries the full painting on one side, letting the artwork speak for itself.
Process
The main challenge was designing a mark strong enough to hold its own against such a visually intense backdrop. The diamond-based monogram went through several iterations before feeling appropriately bold without competing with the imagery. From there, the focus was on balancing the two sides of the identity — the structured logo system and the expressive visual language — so they read as two parts of the same story.
