Logo Design for a Martial Arts Club: Capoeira Hangzhou

Visual artist and designer Andrey Danilov has created this identity for a capoeira club in Hangzhou, China.

Andrey initially spent a couple of days sketching out capoeira movements, hoping to isolate a particular technique that could be used to visually symbolise what is a very expressive martial art form. Key for Andrey was communicating the freedom of movement that capoeira entails.

This specific fighting system has its roots in Brazil, where it was largely practiced and developed by African slaves who had been brought to the Americas by European colonisers. Fighting manoeuvres were often disguised as dancing-type motions in order to avert the attention of slave masters.

However, with this capoeira club being in China, Andrey though it would be more relevant to use a traditional painting medium such as Chinese ink.

“Ink is a lot like capoeira, it’s fluid but on the other hand is very solid and strong. With both of them you have to develop great control in order to achieve a beautiful result,” explains Andrey. When drawing the logo, he was also able to draw on his experience from having taken Chinese calligraphy classes whilst at school.

The identity design was further screen printed onto t-shirts at the China Academy of Art.

Andrey Danilov
www.andreydanilov.com