Odooproject Identity
Recently featured on Behance was the Odooproject identity designed by Hidden Characters (site under construction), a duo of graphic designers from Budapest. The project itself is a submission of an innovative architectural solution for the use of solar energy by a team of university students in Budapest.
Hidden characters have been brought on the team to help with things like logo system, visual identity manual, business cards, promotional posters, brochures, web design and more. And what a job they did!
Building the whole visual identity around the submission itself, at the base of the logo system is an aerial view of the proposed house design which is simple enough. What they decided to do however, is to include the effects of the sun on the house throughout different parts of the day, casting shadows that form the dynamic identity that further ties it back to the theme of solar energy. What they ended up with is a really fantastic visual solution that perfectly captures the essence of the project and is flexible enough to cover a whole range of different applications.
Dynamic identities have become pretty common in the recent years, but they rarely end up working very well, mostly because they are usually applied to applications that cannot be dynamic, like print items, which seems a bit illogical. But worse than that is the fact that with the ones I have seen (I’m looking at you AOL) there is usually never any good reason to develop something dynamic in the first place. It almost seems like designers cannot propose simple effective solutions anymore so they end up offering clients a shape filled with random textures or images, which is hardly a good solution.
This on the other hand seems perfectly worthy of something dynamic and I think it really adds a lot to the project. I especially like the way it’s implemented on the website, where it displays the current time and shows what shadow the building would cast, as well as the inclusion of time and date below the versions of the printed logo. If I had to nitpick I’d say it’s a shame that the name doesn’t start with the letter “H” as that’s pretty much all I can see looking at the versions of the logo. Or maybe it’s a shame that the house itself is not built in an O shape. Could’ve been interesting as well.
Regardless, these are minor issues with what is otherwise an outstanding identity system!