R is for Resident

Rezydent Hotel is located by the main promenade street of Sopot, a small, delightful town between Gdynia and Gdańsk, located by the sea and known for its touristy qualities, relaxed atmosphere (and high prices of housing). The hotel is visible immediately as you enter the street from the train station and it makes for a pleasant view. Recently we had the pleasure of designing its new logo.

The logo was inspired by two things: the strong tradition of art deco design that is characteristic of Sopot’s history and images inspired by the natural landscapes of the town: the beach with its sand and waves and waving grass. That’s why the lines of the R mark form a shape that is between geometric and organic.

The simplicity of the mark is intended so that it doesn’t overwhelm the design of the interior and instead complements its various stripes and lines.

All the images of the hotel courtesy of Nabucco.

Jidyszland Logotype

Recently we’ve designed a logo for the upcoming publishing series by Jewish Historical Institute. The series, called Jidyszland (ייִדישלאַנד / Yiddishland), will be popularizing the literary heritage of the Yiddish language. The mark combines the first letters of the name in Latin and Hebrew alphabets.

This was an exciting logo to work on because it gave us the opportunity to get familiar with a non-Latin alphabet – always a fun challenge – and to work with a purely letter-based sign.

30+ Academy Identity: XXX Marks the Spot

Remember how a long time ago we teased this identity and promised to show it soon? Well, soon(ish) is now.

30+ Academy is a school for lifelong learning where adults may continue their education on an academic level. We designed a logo playfully based on the similarity between the letter X and a plus sign. Then we used these shapes for a series of simple ornaments that are used to decorate promotional materials, such as notebooks and binders.

The limited but cheerful color palette is an essential part of the identity and adds to the attractiveness of patterns and the recognizability of the brand.

Additionally, the three exes inspired us to play with tic-tac-toe motif which appears on a tote bag. Also, a notebook is printed with a dotted grid that can be used to play the game during boring lectures (or to take notes, of course).

We also used the x pattern as a grid allowing for a design of simple pictograms illustrating various courses provided by the Academy.

You can read more about the project on our website.

PhotographiK

Photographer Dariusz Kula, whose work we often used for the publications of the Museum of Gdańsk, asked us to update his identity and we were happy to help.

We designed a logo which combines the letter K with the gesture of framing an image with your fingers to determine the composition. The resulting logo includes a negative space – an inside of a frame, as it were – that can be filled with various images taken by the photographer or with their fragments. More images of the applications to come soon.

XXX+

In addition to reorganizing our home life around the new baby, we’re also trying to finally finish our new website, which, among other things, includes a lot of photo taking (and editing). Guys, we have so many unphotographed projects… Today it’s a sneak peek of an identity for Academy 30+: a venture for adult learning. We based the identity on four X-shapes, one of which is turned to form a plus and we went from there. The color palette is the integral part of the identity. More images to follow some time soon.

A Hundred Years in Seven Logos

Like we mentioned last time, this year marks 100 years of existence of several European countries, which is a great reason for celebrations. It’s also a good reason to design logos and most of the centenarian countries commissioned official logos for the occasion.

However, most of them are not very exciting. Here’s the list of the logos we found with our perfectly subjective ranking from our favorite to our… not favorites.

1. Estonia. This logo uses a very smart idea of creating a simple geometric shape that is both 100 and 18 and that alone would be enough to earn it first place. But additionally in applications photos are placed in two of the three shapes, which works particularly well when the color recreate the colors of Estonian flag. And another extra point: you can create your own variant with your own photo using a dedicated website.
Grade: strong A

Logo with a landscape picture with the colors of Estonian flag.

And a whole lot of other pictures: a simple yet flexible and fun design.

A different way of applying the logo.

2. Lithuania. While this logo feels less flexible, particularly because it seems to work worse in small sizes, at least it’s complex and interesting. 100 was created of letters that form the word Lietuva in patterns which feel folk-inspired. The letters are also used to design a bunch of fun pictograms used for promotional materials. Again the colors of the Lithuanian flag are used and they lend themselves particularly well to the whimsy of the pictograms.
Grade: A for effort, B for execution

The origin of the logo illustrated.

3. Iceland. Now we’re entering a more bombastic territory, which we expected from logos celebrating such momentous occasions. The logo of Iceland combines the two zeros to form infinity sign and this idea is both correct and unoriginal (as you’ll see). But at least the white line inside of the number plays visually with the lines in the Icelandic flag.
Grade: B-

4. Latvia. Same idea, different execution. (And speaking of unoriginal, we’ve seen the same infinity thing in unofficial signs for celebrations in other countries.) Latvian logo also adds the literal Latvian flag for good measure. But while it is not exciting, at least it’s competent.
Grade: B=

5. Poland. This is the one we’ve been seeing everywhere for a year now and the positive thing is: it’s not repulsive (which we feared it might be). However, it plays it so safe. Instead of striving for an interesting idea, it uses a vectorized word niepodległa (“independent [Poland]”) from a letter of Józef Piłsudski, a grand political figure from that time. The idea is hard to argue with but does little to invite any kind of play with the logo. It also doesn’t work so well in small sizes and the vectorization of the handwriting feels clunky and rushed.
Grade: C+

6. Finland. (Finland celebrated it’s 100 last year but we just put it together here.) It uses the same geometry as Estonia but without engaging it in any interesting way. But the calligraphy is better than in the Polish logo.
Grade: C

5. The Czech Republic & Slovakia. Austria.  These logos exist and that’s all we can say about them. They don’t even try – just state the facts and are done with it.
Grade: Participation prize

A Hundred Years of Independence

Today Poland, like a few other European countries, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of re-gaining independence in 1918. We were going to make a special post to celebrate this momentous occasion (we had an idea and everything) but life – literally – happened and we haven’t managed, which is a pity. So instead we’re sharing with you a design we made for local celebrations of this anniversary in Gdańsk.

It combines the words niepodległość (“independence”) with 100 so that the zeroes are also Os. The crown with two crosses is the symbol of Gdańsk and it’s placed symmetrically to the 100. The design uses gold with red and white, which are both the colors of Gdańsk and great colors for any Poland-related celebrations (red and white being the colors of the Polish flag).

“Gdańsk celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Polish independence.”

Śliwka T-shirt

You might remember a few weeks ago we shared our experience of visiting the exhibition of works by Karol Śliwka, a brilliant Polish modernist designer. Now, we’re not usually people who buy a lot of merchandise on such occasions (catalogs, sure) but this time one of the gadgets was a T-shirt with purple logos by Śliwka and we couldn’t resist.

The T-shirt is sold by Pan tu nie stał, a Polish clothing company whose products reference the time of the People’s Republic of Poland (not a great time in Polish history, strictly speaking, but full of things people feel nostalgic about). The company uses a lot of humor not just in their designs but also, as we discovered, in packaging and marketing materials.

Most of the jokes are fairly difficult to explain outside of Poland (all the elements of packaging reference slogans from old products, from work safety posters etc.) but you can still appreciate the design (modern) and attention paid to all the details. This is how the T-shirt is packed, into gray-paper envelope with well-designed graphic elements and old-fashioned slogans:

The back of the envelope.

Tags.

And the T-shirt itself.