Tata Group has just turned 150.
The diverse and robust services of the huge multinational conglomerate holding company demand, of course, a very robust graphic background, too. That’s why we’re so proud that the Tata Consultancy Services has been trusting us with the design of both the online and print edition of their corporate magazine for many years now. The latest issue of Connexions magazine is a celebration of Jamsetji Tata, legendary "Father of Indian Industry”, who laid the foundation of his empire in 1868, exactly 150 years ago.
Hungarian Direct and Interactive Marketing Association renewing its visual image
We have had a close relationship with the image of the association since the ‘old ages’. In 1995, our creative director Attila Simon – back then as part of the Art Force team – had designed the first visuals of the organization; and ten years later he took a part of the renovation of its logo that has been used until now. It’s a pleasure and a privilege that the presidency of the association assigned us with the task of the present renovation. The actual design was designed by Orsi Illés, using the idea of Nóra Mészáros.
The logos of HDMA and its divisions has gained its new form in line with the shaping profile of the organization as well as international trends. Recently, Hungarian Direct Marketing Association has established an activity that makes it the data-driven marketing association of Hungary by creating a Data-driven technologies division and representing, promoting and educating the data-centred approach of marketing.
“We intended to reflect the data-driven approach in our visual image, so we reshaped it using references and symbols – data points, dispersion diagrams, clusters – originally used in data sciences, and at the same time, visually supporting the diversity of our divisions by being colourful and dynamically expandable” – said György Huszics, president of the association. “We find the current new logos created by Café Design perfectly suitable to these objectives.”
It saves paint and it’s friendly to the environment
Café Design has created a unique, trendsetting, and environmental friendly printing solution for Médiapiac (former Lapkiadás / Lapkiadás és Médiapiac). The professional publication’s image refreshment turned out to be a great opportunity to develop a page design based on the economy idea of Ecofront, using a technology of striping that results in a 25-50% save of paint, without an influence of the quality of the printing. This creative idea does not only use resources in an economical way but also confirms the company’s and the brand’s commitment to an exemplary environmental friendly everyday activity.
“Can I have six Greek gods, four Egyptian Pharaohs and seven Roman gladiators please?” Neither Pheidias received orders like that 2500 years ago. However, Café Design had to fulfill such requests on a daily basis in August. From these items was born the first sticker album of Auchan, which was fully designed and produced by Café Design. The time travel of Arnold and Oscar has been available in the hypermarkets since 5th September.
The idea of the project first appeared three years ago when Cora entrusted the agency to create an educational album for kids. Although the concept was prepared, it was not implemented due to the acquisition of Cora, and the project was shelved for two years. The rebirth started in January relying on the original concept, but this time commissioned by Auchan. The journey that starts with the times of dinosaurs and ends in the Middle Ages was extended with new locations and topics, and the characters of Arnold, the smart school boy and Oscar, the talking suricate were also added to the story. In the past three years, there were several ideas about who should guide the kids through the adventure. Besides Tom and Jerry, the popular hamsters of Auchan, robots and aliens were also potential candidates, but at the end Arnold and Oscar came out the winners.
The two main characters and hundreds of drawings from the time, including 166 different stickers, were created by Gyula Pozsgai and Zoltán Lovász. The editor and copywriter of the album was Bálint Szluha. The texts were revised by university and college professors with a careful consideration of the target group, so that kids can learn from the album in a truly playful way. Nothing illustrates the extent of the success better than the words of a cashier in Auchan who told enthusiastically the editor, who visited incognito the store, about his hyperactive son who was thumbing the album for 45 minutes. The kid, in general, is not able to concentrate on one thing for even 10 minutes, she added.
The stickers can be collected until the beginning of November. After every 2,000 forints spent, customers get a pack of stickers, which can also be bought for 99 forints. To fulfill collectors’ request, the store organized exchange days at the end of September, and many look for the missing stickers via want-ads. Besides billboards and city-lights, radio and animated television spots were created for the campaign. Fans can find photo walls featuring a time machine and Arnold and Oscar gifts in the stores. What is more, kids can try logical games on this website and a Facebook application will be available soon, too. Erika Szilágyi, project coordinator at Auchan and Barbi Petz, project manager at Café Design played a key role in getting everything done on time.
More photos of Arnold and Oscar in the photo gallery:
Hungarian advertising agency Café Communications launched a new corporate identity after five years – its colourful, striped logo had been transformed into a dynamic design. A Facebook application was developed to make people able to design their own, unique logo.
Café Communications changed its identity in May, 2014. The new image was created in-house: Café Design executed the task: following the latest trends, they designed a dynamic identity for its agency group. Attila, Simon, managing director of Café Design informed that the question about the image was not that it would be dynamic or not, only that how would it be dynamic. “It was very important for us to implement the old, cheerful identity into a modern design, keeping its liveliness and playfulness, and at the same time, getting more applicable for several platforms and channels. Plus we wanted the identity to be recognizable even without the logo itself, only by its patterns.”
Therefore, sticking with the Café trademark of the colourful stripes, but transforming and reshaping it, we a new design, those dynamics were originated in the arrangement of the colourful columns, was created. The evolution of the logo can be followed on this half-minute demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVg5xFjdbks
After the in-house presentation of the identity, all Café employees were granted access to an internal application to make them able to design their own, unique logo which was then used on their business cards and e-mail signatures as well. There was no chance to design to identical logos, as by varying the order of the colours and the height f the columns, there were more than 4 thousand billion different possibilities of arrangement available.
Encouraged by the success of the application, we created an open, client version of it, so that anyone could design his own, tailor made Café logo. Users of the applications also had a chance to win promotional items such as t-shirts, mugs and USB sticks – of course, with their own logo printed on them.
What does dynamic identity mean?
In contrast with the deeply-rooted traditions of logo creation of the past hundred years that preferred stability, dynamic identity provides the liberty of combination of certain elements of the design according to well-established rules, making it possible to create several variations. This trend became popular at the beginning of the 21st century, when it became obvious that an organization or company should be more diverse than to be represented, together with all its main characteristics, by one unalterable symbol. The pioneers of dynamic identity were MTV (Music Television), using several logo versions at the same time, and Casa da Música, a cultural institute in Porto.
Real fruit pálinka is an acknowledged ’hungaricum’ (Hungarian speciality) today that resulted a change in the surrounding culture of consumption to it. The early morning spirit-warmer became a social beverage and thus its prestige and primary target group has also altered, too.
NNG is a global navigation solution provider. The company recently moved into new headquarters and, along with the relocation, they felt the urge to welcome all colleagues with a new employee manual.
The brief was simple – do something ELSE but the usual boring stuff. Create something everyone would love, use often, find interesting and helpful...in accordance with the company’s identity.
The outcome was a booklet full of useful tips, info, trivia and tailor made games. In addition we designed a map so no one gets lost in the new building.
The owner of this brand found us thanks to our history with alcoholic beverages. This is a love project for him next to his main business, still or rather for this reason he asked for a professional design referring to Hungarian traditions.
The distillery is in the fruitful region of the Great Plain on Hungary where traditions are respected and great spirits are born. Even the name 'Palotás' comes from a traditional Hungarian folk dance. These factors inspired the designer to draw flaming motifs of traditional Hungarian patterns to the logo. The slim dark bottle together with our logo and label design supports the quality message of the brand.
There is a fairly young publishing house in Hungary, Libri Publisher. They found us through a friendly acquaintance and we were very glad about this merge of business and pleasure. Working with books is just as rewarding as challenging. But this is how we like it.
And as they are the official publishers for the biggest Hungarian bookstore chain it means 10-20 new releases each month.So we have a lot of reading and designing to do.
We have been working together from the beginnings, so for a couple of months now,mainly on book covers, but at some points we are involved in the marketing phase also.
We had a stamping ground near our office, a small café with an ambitious owner and strong, pitch black espresso. The more we went there the more we chatted and as we got to know each other it all came down to a creative process, as it often happens with designers in a café.
First we redesigned the logo then the different tools came along from business cards, to menus and cutlery. In the end we even redesigned the interior of the place. Meanwhile we also started to do the communication for Cafe Five – citylight posters, flyers, coupons, interior and food photos besides facebook activity.
Though we’ve moved our regular visits to Café Five remained a habit!
Café Design was awarded at the second annual Mediadesign competition of Kreatív magazine. The application titled ’Richter Gedeon’s Annual Report and Consolidated Financial Report’ received a first prize in the category of corporate publications. Café Design had been responsible for the graphic and typographic design, editing and print production of the Annual Report. The design of the publication was based on the innovative parts of construction, the dynamic images separating the units of the content, and the info-graphics that articulately and comprehensively represented the complex processes.
Client: Babarczi Winery
Task: brand image and packaging design, website
Babarczi Winery is the second major winery of the Pannonhalma Wine Region.
We have taken baby-steps of cooperation in the recent years. We had started with working on their packaging design – bottle labels, obviously – and the corporate design, then we continued with their presentational publication. A year ago, we also designed their website that was published in August, 2017.
Boci chocolate has established a unique colour image since its first major brand identity re-launch in the nineties: its packaging has been well-known by its consumers, mostly young parents. Boci evokes their childhood, and at the same time, it is less expensive than the products of worldwide brands, so they more easily afford to put one or two bars in the basket when they are doing their shopping.
A while ago, as the product itself was renewed – its chocolate content is now higher, its lumps are larger and new taste-variations are launched to the market – Nestlé Hungária has assigned us to redesign the packaging as well. Our goal was, while ensuring continuity of the colour usage, to bring the product even closer to its consumers emotionally, as well as to better distinguish its individual taste variations.
Our art director created a clear-out, colourful and modern design, which, keeping certain elements of the former design, preserved its traditional character, while its severe details and its enticing illustrations made the diversity of taste variations more emphasized – without suppressing the unique features of the brand.
Products of Óhegyi Winery are made for young beginners of wine consumption with a desire of real specialities, who are merely getting acquainted with the diverse world of several crop lands and are experimenting openly and bravely with unknown tastes.
The design, on one hand, creates a unity within the diversity of the wine types of the crop lands – while, on the other hand, it emphasizes the complex and selective nature of the product line. The bright and vivid colours of labels make it easy to identify each assortment of land and taste.
The OTP Fáy András Foundation established a financial education institute for young adults in Budapest. The brief was to create a name and identity for the initiative and adapt the whole visual world to the building interior itself. But do it in a way teenagers would understand, like and find interesting. It was a complex project including graphic design, interior design, decoration and uniform design for teachers and workers.
Client: Royal vodka is the leading vodka brand in Hungary
Task: renewal of the whole brand identity: logo, bottle and label. The new packaging is rewarded on PACK in 2009.
PACK is a Hungarian competition for packaging
GlaxoSmithKline asked for a logo and identity to promote its campaign for in-house events where they can reach and activate their colleagues.
The logo had to symbolize team and togetherness while it also had to resemble the public GSK company logo.
Thus the whole identity bears the fundamental GSK identity elements in shapes and colours combined with the motives of chemistry and biology - the visual key is based on a molecular structure.
Using a modern typeface a modern identity was born as a counterpart to the classy visual of GSK.
The leading Hungarian financial institute, OTP Bank is a loyal client of ours. We have been working together for years on different publications.
Our latest work was the CSR report which we completed with a website this year containing many solutions to increase user experience and supporting environmental awareness.
There were two routes in our head at the beginning of this project. One motive was to emphasize the herbal aspect of this product by Béres. There were many creatives with herbs but they faded away as the client decided that this creative concept is far too close to herbal remedies and teas.
So we went in the modern route keeping the brand’s rather serious medical identity by using the already familiar nonfigurative lines and waves. We managed to create a packaging that fits well in the already existing line of Béres OTC products.
There are 5 new members to the already familiar line of Gyulai Pálinka. They are blended spirits made of a variety of the finest fruits tuned to the four seasons. In addition beside the four seasons there is an extra member to complete the line called Black and Red combining the flavors of black berry and sour cherry.
But the newcomers are not only new in taste but also new in packaging. The basic elements of the awarded original design remained but there are new features to the basic concept like the occuring linear patterns referring to the blended flavors.
The flavors vary every year because of the fruits used, thus this years’ edition bears the 2009 mark to show that the owner of the manufactory selected the best of last year’s harvest.
When Pick Zrt. decided that it’s time to give a new packaging to its products the management asked for a design that holds together all items and reflects the values they hold.
The company has a wide range of products from sausages and frankfurters to salamis, from pates to sliced ones. They had graphic elements in common but needed a more direct and coherent connection to each other and to the main Pick brand.
Right at the beginning of the creative process we stated that it is important to respect all values connected to Pick and its products but at the same time we wanted to give it a modern touch. To fulfil these ideas we used Art Nouveau and wrought iron elements but tried to let the products speak for themselves, especially in case of ‘Téliszalámi’ the worldwide known premium salami of Hungary.
The new design brings the message of premium quality, traditional values and fine tastes.
To bring all products together we consciously created a coherent typography and depicted the oval logo on all packages. There is only one semi-exception to this idea, and it is the original ‘Téliszalámi’ on which the new oval logo remained in the original crest bounding as a tribute to traditional values.
The client started winery only a couple of years ago; this is not his main profession, rather a love of his life. The designer's task was to create a logo and packaging design for the first vintage to go on the market. An elegant label was expected that stands out from the average line of wine packaging design. The final creation is a cluster of grapes made of numbers and letters to achieve a design that defines the whole motivation behind the product.
The original 'pálinka' is a distilled spirit made of fermented fruits. Only those products can be referred to the 'pálinka' which are made from Hungarian fruits, have 100% fruit content and got 37,5% of alcohol strength as a minimum.
The first distillery in Gyula was founded by János György Harruckern in 1731. This nearly 300 year-tradition is carrying on by Gyulai Pálinka Manufacture (in these days).
The task was to create a new packaging design which focuses to the mature young generation. The key motive of the new design is the Hungarian hound, which is fidelity, nobility and got all the traditional values.
Gyulai Palinka Spirit | Packaging of the World: Creative Package Design Archive and Gallery
A logo is far more than a simple sign on a product or a business card. It is the face of an idea, an essence of all fundamental features a company.
Background: The biggest Hungarian organization development company, FLOW Group asked us to design a new corporate identity for them for their 10th anniversary. The idea behind the name comes from the theory of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. ’When the person becomes one with what he is just doing regardless of the results he feels that all is well…This is when he experiences that life is flowing within him. This is FLOW.’ This idea is the engine of FLOW Group making them the leader of the market.
Challenge: Flow group is a complex system of many different companies and subsidiaries.But as a whole it is an organization focusing on personal development, creativity and innovation.As such, it is much more diverse than one single sign could summarize all its features.
Strategy & Big idea:We fast realized that presenting traditional logos won’t solve the problem. So we showed no designs on our first presentation. Rather we presented a trend we thought would fit them best… the trend of dynamic logos.
Solution: We got one month to create the first dynamic identity in Hungary for FLOW Group.We created a dynamic system for them making it possible to create different logos for the company, the subsidiaries and every colleague too.
Result: Introducing the new logo and involving all the Flow people in creating their own one resulted in an enormous amount of pride.
‘Every time we hand over our business card to a partner we always tell them how it describes the fundamental values of Flow Group: togetherness, autonomy, professionalism and individuality.We often see honest recognition and sometimes a little envy in their eyes.”
The new identity made Flow a “lovebrand” and a perfect present for the 10th birthday of the company.
Client: Baba is a traditional, Hungarian beauty brand, recently owned by Unilever
Task: renewal of the whole product range
The E3 European Agency Network holds its Annual General Meeting in Budapest 2011 Spring. Café Design – as the Hungarian member agency – will host the 3 day-long conference. We are expecting guests from 24 agencies of 21 countries.
The presentations will walk around the changing world’s marketing challenges. The inherent potential of the new marketing channels and the freshly evolving marketing-segments will be on the air too. On the latter area the green marketing will be the leading subject.
Oppenheim is the first branded law firm in Hungary with national and international clients. They briefed us when they decided to refresh their brand identity.
It was important for them to restore elements of the former logo representing their roots but asked for something unusual since innovation and forward thinking is also a core element of the company.
This was the key factor for us to recommend a dynamic identity for these lawyers. We found a form representing global thinking and also a link to their brand name and original logo. Into this shape a code system was delivered based upon the Hungarian alphabet and the frequency of letters used. Now the company has a base logo and everybody has his or her own logo derived from this sign according to their names and titles.
Client: Hungary’s biggest power supply company which operates several power stations
Task: annual report
Client: traditional Confectionery Company in Hungary
Task: packaging design
Client: Hungarian ammunition factory
Task: logo and corporate identity, stationary, packaging
