Port of Life - There is my anchor
Approach
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Luka Života (Eng.: Port of Life) is non-profit project developed as an alternative city brand for Banja Luka, second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Brand itself have a mission to communicate and points out all the positive aspects of life in Banja Luka, as well as inspirational and interesting stories of its citizens. With its long history, cultural heritage and geographical location whole city area brings authentic “vibe”, distinctly familiar to everyone who ever visited or lived in Banja Luka. As a university and cultural center of the region Banja Luka offers numerous different contents, as for example: five music festivals, vine and food festival, motorcycle rally, seminars, conferences, etc. Located on the river Vrbas, city itself has a great potential for a white-water canoeing, kayaking and rafting which also attracts visitors and tourists from all around the world. With the mountain river flowing through downtown and plenty of green areas over the city, Banja Luka wears epithet of a “green town” and is often described as a pleasant place for living, as for young generation also for its senior citizens.
Assignment
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Main task given with the brief for this project was to create recognizable brand identity and distinctive visual language which will easily transfer tone of communication and help people to identify with new city brand. Also, demand was to identity design reflects in a certain way some of the commonly known symbols of Banja Luka and have incorporated some landmark of the city.
First step in process of shaping the new brand was to come up with a new, touching and associative name. Goal was to give a name that was developed from the city's name, so some sort of wordplay has been used (The name “Luka Života” translated to English literally means: Port of life). Besides the name a short tagline is also incorporated in brand identity which additionally points affiliation and affection that this project share for this city and specially its citizens. With the name and tagline (“There is my anchor”) entire identity illustrates a message which this brand try to communicate: Banja Luka is a city of people, youth and families, a place where they love to live and where everyone is happy to return.
Result
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As a result, we created a cheerful visual identity presented by illustrative logo which is compounded with stylized symbols of Banja Luka. The logo was shaped in two colours, red and blue, which are at the same time official colours of the city. Also, the name and tagline embedded beneath the sign are typed in two typefaces, sans serif and script, which were used equally on branded materials and in digital content.
Since the project was launched in 2017, it has achieved great reactions from the people of Banja Luka, especially among the younger generation. Most of interactions were realized through social media platforms where “Luka Zivota” gained few thousands of fans and followers in a short period of time. People responded positively to the content and also participated by giving feedback and sharing positive and inspirational city stories.
