SXF BERLIN BRANDENBURG AIRPORT
This week's feature highlights one submission from Worldwide Identity, by RL Peters. It offers a deeper story of design development, branding, and identity construction. Studio Ständige Vertretung developed the identity for the Berlin-Schönefeld Flughafen Airport. Nick Kapica, one of the art directors for the project, agreed to divulge more details about this project in an email interview with Icograda's Communication Intern, Brooke van Mossel-Forrester.

We were particularly interested in the unusual
evolution of the Ständige Vertretung studio which their founder, Nick
Kapica, describes as follows:
"I moved from London to
Berlin in 1989, just after the Berlin wall fell. It was my intention to
live in Berlin for a year and observe the changes in the city. Like
many others I was absorbed into the city itself and, 16 years later, I
am still here. Shortly after arriving in Berlin I met Tim Richter and
together we founded the first Techno club in East Berlin, called St
ndige Vertretung. Shortly after the club opened, many other clubs were
founded, and soon the project that started for fun was becoming a
serious business. Seeing an increasing opportunity to produce publicity
material for the other clubs, we closed our club down and began the
Studio Ständige Vertretung (SV). Flyer magazine, Tresor and E-werk were
amongst our first clients and were the mechanism to get the studio
known. The studio at this time was more of a cooperative than a
company, but studio members changed and SV became known to a wider
client base. The techno mini magazine 'flyer' that we were producing,
and my previous experience with The Independent in London, got us a job
creating an airport magazine for the Berlin Airport Authority. At the
same time plans were being made for the first 'Karneval der Kulturen',
and the studio was approached to develop the identity because someone
working on the project knew us from the 'scene'. Both the Berlin
Airport Authority and the 'Karneval der Kulturan' have continued to
work with the studio and consequently introduced us to other clients.
Tim
Richter left the Berlin studio in 1998 and moved back to Sydney, where
he established SV02. He concentrated on moving images and was
responsible for the on-screen graphics in the Matrix films. In 2000 I
was able to attract Andrew Lawrence from London to Berlin. He made the
transition of working for 'Imagination', one of Londons largest design
offices, to one of Berlin's smallest. We had studied together at
Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication so our individual
understanding of design was very much aligned. Ilka Kapica also took
over the management of the studio from me, which was a good thing for
everyone, enabling projects to be completed within budget, and for me
to concentrate on the quality of the design we were producing. While
myself and Andrew are both from England, it was a pleasant surprise for
us to be one of the 'German' entries in the book 'Worldwide Identity,'
as we were both educated at a college that took its inspiration from
Ulm, where we were introduced to a modernist German/Swiss approach to
design."
With such a unique history, it is no wonder that SV had the skills required to redevelop Berlin Airport's image.
"The
Airport approached various design companies in Berlin with a design
brief and requested a bid and design proposal. It turned out that our
presentation was more thorough and explored more possibilities than the
competition. We won the competition and were given the contract to
develop the identity and to implement various stages of the project."
Studio
Ständige Vertretung draws upon a wide variety of outside skills to
successfully create various corporate identities, orientation systems,
exhibition design, interior design, posters, interactive design and
moving images. For example, "an exhibition designed for the Bank for
International Settlements in Basel required that filmmakers, musicians,
designers, architects and writers all work together. It is important
then that the full time studio partner keep each area informed and
communicating with the others. As the projects become more diverse the
function of a full time member working with different associates who
have specific skills becomes increasingly important."
For
the Berlin Brandenburg Airport however, "all the team members had the
necessary skills to complete this project. It required an understanding
and knowledge of wayfinding, research techniques, spatial design,
de-coding and history of signs and symbols, legibility as well as
typography, icons design/drawing and colour theory."
The
Berlin Airport design team was broken down into several positions:
project leader, full-time studio partner, part-time project manager,
design assistants and studio manager. Nick described how these
positions related to one another in order to develop a successful
identity:
"The project leader oversaw the whole project
and kept in close contact with the client via regular weekly meetings,
making presentations, explaining ideas and approving budgets. All ideas
were first presented and discussed in full with the leader. He would
instigate work flow, join in with design concepts and help with
generating ideas and visualizing. The project leader was also in charge
of other projects at the same time, whereas the studio partner and the
project manager were focused mainly on the airport project.
"The
part-time project manager attended meetings with the client, acted as a
mediator, planned deadlines and stages in the design schedule and
oversaw the production. The part-time project manager also liaised with
production companies, supplied offers and researched possible
suppliers.
"The full-time studio partner was responsible
mainly for the creative side of the project, allocating work to
assistants, implementing design concepts, drawing icons, developing the
logotype, organizing team meetings where decisions would be made
regarding typographic and colour choices and general development. The
full-time studio partner was also responsible for preparing work for
presentations, preparing artwork and overseeing production.
"The
studio manager worked on all the studio s projects at the same time,
coordinating, organising finances, budgets and general office work."
This
team completely overhauled the Berlin Airport's visual identity,
developing both a new name and a new orientation system.
"Our
competition proposal included a suggestion to shorten the existing name
'Berlin-Schönefeld Flughafen' to 'Berlin SXF'. Although the client was
very positive about this proposal, the political implications were too
large and pressure came to develop a name incorporating the state
Brandenburg. Various proposals were explored until finally a name was
decided upon that maintained the SXF idea with the addition of 'Berlin
Brandenburg Airport'. The benefit here was that it enables the Airport
to smoothly transition to 'Berlin Brandenburg International' in some
years when the planned new airport is completed."
"Transition
was an important aspect of the design, as we wanted a solution that
could be animated because airports are all about movement. We were also
aware that the identity had a limited life span because a new airport
was already planned therefore we 'built-in' the possibility for the SXF
identity to transition into the new airports identity."
"The
aim was to produce a sign system that would be as clean and uncluttered
as possible, to contrast with the rather chaotic environment. Simple,
bold, striking sign boxes without frames, creating clean, smooth lines.
Budget played a key role, we needed to produce signage that required no
additional lighting but worked with the ambient light of the terminal
environment. The boxes were custom designed, worked on a meter module
system and were produced locally. The boxes looked good, had a certain
quality about them, yet were relatively cheap to produce, required no
electrics and were therefore quick and cheap to install, and easy to
maintain."
The aesthetic of the chosen fonts is continued
throughout the entire design and orientation system, an aspect that
makes the whole identity cohesive. Nick describes the harmony created
between the images, the dot matrix font and the complimenting Foundry
Sterling font:
"Various colour combinations were presented
before yellow and blue were decided upon, various typefaces were also
put forward. Our favourite was the newly designed typeface Foundry
Sterling font, which is friendly, very readable, flexible and modern
looking. Once Foundry Sterling was agreed upon we needed to design a
series of icons or pictograms that worked in harmony with the font.
Foundry Sterling has soft lines and is quite curvy so the pictograms
reflected this, creating a unity between the font and the icon. Tests
were conducted to determine the optimal size of pictogram and
typesize."
"Dot matrix fonts provided us with way to
animate. Once a particular dot matrix font was finally chosen, it was
decided that we would re-draw our own matrix of dots, which had the
added benefit of allowing us to create other elements from the same
matrix, giving a unified look. Dots had positive associations for the
airport, runway lamps, a dynamic, modern and sexy look. The dots could
also be animated easily and formed a very flexible design system."
The
images above illustrate this smooth continuity between font and
graphics, which Nick Kapica and his team at Studio Ständige Vertretung
worked hard to maintain. For more samples of design identity, please
browse our other features or visit our online galeria.
For more information, contact:
Nick Kapica
SV (Ständige Vertretung)
Aufgang A, Köpenicker Strasse 48/49
Berlin, Germany
T: +49 30 30 87 28 18
F: +49 30 2 79 59 02
E:
W:www.svberlin.com