About
Imagined for the historic cradle of Minas Gerais, TEDx Mariana set out to honour the region’s serrated skyline and rich musical heritage while remaining unmistakably TED.
The challenge was two‑fold: convey a sense of place without resorting to postcard clichés, and create a system flexible enough to spawn endless assets—from posters to stage graphics—on demand. The answer lay in the city’s own soundtrack: choros drifting from baroque squares, drums echoing through Ouro Preto’s valleys, buskers improvising by the railway.
At the heart of the concept is a single, continuous pentagram line—the five‑staff stave every musician knows—rewritten as both notation and topography. An algorithm lets sound bend that line into peaks and valleys; each beat pushes it vertically, tracing silhouettes that mirror the surrounding Serra do Espinhaço. The result is a living mark that never repeats yet always reads as "mountains in motion." Against TED’s signature red‑and‑black palette, the fluent line threads through oversized letterforms, posters and way‑finding panels, giving static compositions a latent pulse.
To demonstrate the idea, we built a prototype generator in React JS and HTML Canvas. Anyone can drop in an audio clip—keynote snippets, local folk tunes, even ambient street noise—and instantly export artwork sized for print or social. The tool showcases how the system could compress a week of layout work into minutes, freeing content creators to focus on storytelling rather than file prep.
Envisioned across LED screens, construction hoardings and social feeds, the identity positions TEDx Mariana as more than an event: it becomes a shared performance where Minas Gerais itself supplies the score.