A poster alone does not make a festival

The particular challenge of working for the Montreux Jazz Festival for Albin Christen was to design his illustrations in such a way that they could also be transferred to other products sold at the festival, such as T-shirts, baseball caps, ties and more. But he was particularly challenged by the stage design. It was the first time in the history of the Montreux Jazz Festival that the poster motif also served as stage decoration. The figures had to be worked out three-dimensionally in Styrofoam and connected to each other on stage so that they formed the same circle as on the poster and developed the same dynamics. Lighting was of great importance in the production on stage. For the loner Albin Christen, the teamwork with the lighting and stage manager was unusual, but extremely enriching and the result amazing.
For the third time this year, a Swatch watch was launched especially for the Montreux Jazz Festival. Albin Christen's idea was to bring his figures to life. Instead of the hour and minute hands, two plastic discs rotate with the figures painted on them from the event poster. The fact that the saxophonist looks up the singer's skirt as he chugs forward every minute is an amusing detail.
In this case, the clock was more of a toy than a timepiece anyway, since the digits for the exact time were missing, says Christen about his creation. The festival visitors, at any rate, were hardly bothered by the fact that they were not constantly reminded of how late at night or how early in the morning it already was. Anita Vaucher