CACCAU (Centro de Apoio à Cultura e Criatividade em Ambiente Urbano/ Center for Support of Culture and Creativity in the Urban Environment) was started by Agência Inova in Porto in 2011. After the official presentation, they opened up a design competition to develop a brand identity.
Here is the work i submitted.
I focused on the urban environment. While still at a sketching phase, i decided to design a flexible wordmark that could shift its typology in order to mirror the many types of buildings in the city. This was achieved by snapping the elements to a square grid and extracting three different combinations – vertical, horizontal and angled–, all of which constructed around the two core elements – culture and creativity –, highlighted by the use of color.
The basic geometric letterforms would serve as the building blocks of the identity so that the different combinations would convey the varied approaches to culture and creativity.
To provide enough alternatives to brand all the materials, a rich and energetic 5-color scheme was chosen, to serve either as a background color for the black&white logos, or as a highlight color for the two cornerstones of the identity – the two C's that stand for culture and creativity.
The wordmark was designed with a slightly customized version of the NULL free typeface designed by FontFabric, while the descriptor was set in AW Conqueror Slab Light, also free, kindly published by Conqueror .
The color options where then carried through the corporate stationery, each item featuring a different color. This decision allowed me to effortlessly display several combinations, depending on the items at use.
Every logo version exerted a dynamic rythm based on the circular shapes of the C's and their diagonal negative spaces. With this in mind, i decided that the overall identity would greatly benefit if the supporting images discreetly echoed those shapes, while still illustrating the broad range of cultural activities supported by the institution.
