Central European league

BRIEF – Develop a brand that strategically adapt to the organisational context and stays relevant for years to come.

PROJECT – We got the brief to reimagine the Erste Bank Ice hockey League as a brand, which spans all of Austria as well as teams from Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia. Dealing with a rather “dusty” look and feel of the old existing brand, my partner and I were sure we had to progressively reinvent the experience around such popular, intense and vibrant sport. We developed typographical system as core of the visual language that not just defined the logo type, but allowed us to handle any kind of branded copy flexibly. Further, we developed the new color palette, any stationary, digital touchpoint as well as above-the-line campaign material.

TEAM – Communication Designer, Interaction Designer

BRAND VALUES –  Taking on the brief, it was important to us to communicate the values we subscribe to a European sports league – by nature it is international, multicultural and diverse. The image of the brand consists of the diversity of perspectives we find within the spectacle.

BENCHMARKING –  Benchmarking against leagues around the world quickly disclosed what visual style we were inspired from and which aesthetics we would contrast clearly.

LOGO TYPE –  The logo describes the speed of the sport, the historical fact that the league spans three leagues in one, the puck, as well as slicing ice skates. TT Polls was used as secondary typeface, a modern slab serif inspired by American sport graphics.

TYPOGRAPHY –  Everything followed a rational so did we try to describe the evolution of the typeface coming from the bulky ice hockey player with its protectors (square), making it more dynamic (rounded corners), and faster (sliced), making it a letter (letter A), and give it a bit more speed (slanted letter A). Creativity and imagination thus helps to describe two fully functional font styles.

VISUAL LANGUAGE –  The visual language is defined by the sensual experience of the game. What are the peculiarities of the game? How does the audience perceive the spectacle? Ice hockey lives from fast, abrupt proximity and bodily intensity. It is physical, dynamic and moved – so we took the moving body as visual language.

CAMPAIGNS –  Posters and billboards would work prominently in streets solely living from pattern like image editing and the league’s unique typeface.

ON ICE –  Logo and typeface application inside the stadium.

DIGITAL TOUCH POINTS –  The web presence is modern and clean. The idea was to split content from stats, really highlighting those hero stories within the league as well as providing scores and ranking at a glance.

STATIONARY –  Neutrality of correspondence with a strong expression.