Office Design-Collaborative Project-Branding
Project Brief:
Create the following for an Interior Office Space located in Via Della Foderia 25_Florence, Italy considering the scale and material:
1. Modular Typeface
-Built on grid-Inspired by found objects, textures and patterns from the surrounding area.
2. Wayfinding System
-A map of the Office, Directions to get from A to B, Signs of the designated areas.
3. System of Icons and Logo
4. A home page for the online Magazine
About Enquirer
ENQUIRER comes from the experience of the journalist and photographer-Bruno Nerli, that after a collaboration with national geographic decided to create an innovative project in the information panorama.
ENQUIRER proposes a different approach to social issues from the point of view of documentary photography, Distributed for free, online monthly photo-magazine developed by an editorial staff.
ENQUIRER tells small and big international stories through images, offering to the readers the possibility to have access to longer term projects with complex story line, focusing in themes like civil rights, neglected, ignored, or otherwise outsidethe-mainstream populations, conditions in less developed nations and environmental problematics.
ENQUIRER HQ houses Nerli’s studio, the journal offices and a multifunctional space where workshops, publications and exhibitions of photographs and multimedia are held, aiming to integrate and awake the community to different social problematics.
Photography works of the collaborators looked as follows:
Since most of their work consisted of reality, complex and real issues, in a way displaying the hardships and complicated human reality while creating the typeface and this project I constantly kept in my mind this theme.
I started this project by analyzing the surrounding area of the office in order to decide on a texture, pattern and design for my typeface.
From these images (taken by a friend since I wasn't in Italy)
I feel a sense of Grunge style, with round edged shapes, thick typography, a contrast of things (wood with metal, steal with paint, plain wall with a textured wall)
As you can see from my re-drawing of the surrounding and also considering that the Documentary magazine photography covers social issues mostly relating to mankind which often turns out to be complex and yet connected, I wanted to bring that in my typeface to start with, and in order to design so I wanted to take a reference typeface which was thick and bold with rounded edges (based on the typefaces found in the images in the office area) , hence I shortlisted the reference typeface to be Oswald bold and decided to round it's top edges. And then inculcate the complex concept within it, which process you can see in the following images.
The reference typeface taken by me was bold, thick but did not have rounded edges-Oswald Bold
I used the existing Oswald Bold Typeface and the existing grid of this typeface-rounded the top edges.
I tried to further simplify the typeface and at the same time keep the concept of 'complicated and yet inter-connected'-like the social issues covered by each collaborator of the magazine.
This project was a collaborative project with the interior design students of my institute, so while designing the typeface we were also supposed to choose and consider the space designed by an interior design student. Below are the images of the space I thought most suited the concept of the magazine office briefed to us and that would very well go with the typeface designed by me.
I chose this design by Yifat Levy since it was simple, all grey black and brown, and since I made my typeface before choosing the interior space, considering that my typeface was already so complex-because my concept was complicated and yet connected, I thought it would be best to use it in a simple minimal interior space
Designing the Enquirer Logo
For the logo I wanted to solely use the letter I had created, and the most interesting part about the logo and letters I created was the letter 'I' which looked like a person and since my whole concept was to bring the 'complicated and yet connected' social issues involving human beings, I could further carry forward this concept of mine in designing my Icons and other collaterals,
There is a question mark over the 'I' (person) thereby subtly showing a person question, enquiring, which is what this documentary photography magazine does enquires and questions social issues, covers reality.
Material Research
While choosing the material to display the collaterals in this interior space I was considering the following:
Since the interior space had bamboo, I wanted a material similar or close to bamboo.
-I wanted to try using as less variety of materials for my logo, icon and way-finder as possible.
-Also to start thinking of the most sustainable material I also considered of thinking what materials a person would use if they were born in an era where plastic and other materials that pollute the environment now didn't exist.
-I initially was considering Raw steel (since the interior space already has steel) or wood since its the most sustainable Material.
-Since my designs are complex and the production with raw steel would cost a lot of resources and cost, I eliminated that and chose wood.
-For Icons I was considering barks of wood and printing on them, but the look of my designs weren't enhanced in that way, so I finally short listed using Birch plywood by laser engraving technique for everything-logo, icon and wayfinder, after reading about its sustainability.
-Also I didn't want to use paint or colour on it since it's more difficult to recycle it and while making a choice of material it is necessary to consider the sustainability of the material.
Above is the floor plan o the interior space, along with locations of Icons required to be designed and placed in the office.
Icon Design
Style of Icon- Doodle Icon because they feel more personal, because the magazine covers more connected, sensitive to mankind scenarios, I wanted to use a more humanistic style which gives like an essence of being/living.
Material for the Icons:
Initially I was considering to use barks of wood and try adding colour to it but I felt like the Icons weren't looking as enhanced as I wanted it to look, and again using paint wouldn't be favorable in terms of sustainability since having paint on the small bark would make it difficult for it to be recyclable, so I decided to change it to carved plywood through laser technique.
Hence using the letter 'I', that looked like a human figure, I used it throughout to create the Icons for this office.
With the Icons the typeface used is Oswald Bold-the reference typeface as seen below:
Creating a Wayfinding System
For the way finding I wanted to try a design which is different from the normal arrowed wayfinding, but also goes with the designs of my Icons and typeface.
Because the interior space was really small and simple I didn't feel the need for a way finding system but since it was a requirement for the project I designed a board and a arrow going with this complex style.
Reflective Analysis
Since this was my first collaborative project with an interior designing project, there is scope for improvement and there is a lot I learnt by researching about material, practically how the designs could be made and applied in the real world. It is different because normally one would go with a simple design, but considering how complicated these issues are and human connection in general was the idea behind my complicated letter design also inspired by the surroundings in the office space.
