A new type of conversation from Danish company, The Empty Square

Banner design for social media.

Since their launch in October 2020, The Empty Square, founded by Julie and Simon from LivingCities, has already gained a positive response and support from over 25 countries so far.

The visual identity, and blog website is an extension of their brandingsite for LivingCities. So, intentially I designed their logo submark (L and C) to have just the right amount of abstractness and flexibilty, so it could be used on the blog aswell.

Dive in the conversation on their social media channels.
Visit: Theemptysquare.org for more information.

GRAPHIC DESIGN · WEBDESIGN

The frontpage of the blog’s brandingsite with easy access to filtering blogposts.

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Content-driven and naturalistic minimalism for Danish company, LivingCities.

According to Simon Glinvad Nielsen and Julie Holck from LivingCities we need strong communities to create sustainable societies for the future. LivingCities specializes in finding and creating that coherence.

It is not enough just to create some buildings. When creating living spaces, we have to think both horizontally and vertically. LivingCities create content that makes people thrive in cities. Creating a frame for healthy growth is LC's mission. My work infused their mission into their brand identity. Words like 'frame', ‘content‘ and ‘nature‘ kicked-off the process, visually.

The stylistic starting point was of a Japanese and Nordic minimalism combined with texture from the world of analogue. This idea came through across banner illustrations, where geometrical shapes derived from the logo submark (L and C) was designed to fit subpages.

Gold blush tones as inspiration.

For the base of the design, we very carefully chose a green colour and a blush tone derived from a sundown-picture where Julie and Simon live.

Green has so much power. It calms and makes us feel safe. LivingCities whole brandingsite evolves around nature, soft values –and most importantly: content! So their identity conveys just that stressing big letters with strong character, easy to read and sprinkled with graphical elements.

Behind the logo:
Geometric shapes with reference to the minimalistic Bauhaus era. ‘L’ and ‘C’ create associations to a skyline, a calm face, architecture etc. depending on the angle.

Submark

Wordmark

Logo icon

This was the initial start of the logodesign proces. Very rough and lots of sketching.

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A feminine universe

Merilyn Keskula has two businesses; Mylky Moon Lab (MML) & Keskula Digital. Merilyn’s previous website for MML was leaning to cater women-only. She wanted to change that.

Another Danish graphic designer originally designed the identity and concept. A cool and timeless logo no doubt. The colour palette was red and black – a very strong identity that Merilyn sought to open up to also attract the opposite sex. The starting point was to change the original logo colours from red tones, over to a dusty palette like sage, lavender and blush.

Mission was to make the overall look and feel, pleasant and welcoming for all humanbeings whom seek wisdom for a cyclical living.

Illustrator Elisa Vendramin got on board and contributed to the concept, designing 4 artworks involving natural elements. Please visit Elisa – you will be amazed of her talent. Go see her work here – it is astounding!

Sometimes small businesses are so incredibly dynamic that the initial concept changes at the speed og lightning. Due to this, MML’s website sadly did not make it on the world-wide-web for very long.

Good thing, Merilyn is a Squarespace user because of its flexibility and ability to transform fairly quickly.

A look at the design done for project Milky Moon Lab:

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Wordmark – here the black colour is a dusty dark blue and before the to half-circles were black, now divided to reflect masculine and feminine energy.

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Logo submark with the new colourpalette. These colours are the only thing still kept from my collaboration with MML.

Starting a new brand is an exciting journey

I am happy to announce that a long time coming project went live today. Congrats to Nightowl Denmark and its founder, Jørgen Rasmussen on his new venture!

Taking on a niche and to have the courage to look different than all the rest in the tourism-bunch, is the kind of client I respect!

Nightowl Denmark – a bold new startup with an experienced and passionate guide – based in Denmark. Nightowl is the first to base every trip on supporting ecological and being kind to nature. Nightowl is a business founded on passion, on giving back to Mother Nature, revealing local gems, leading the way on how to be planet-friendly. It’s been my pleasure to collaborate on creating a 360 degrees visual identity, from start to finish with Jørgen. It is always special when client and designer match.

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Project:

• Concept development, art direction, support

• Webdesign, designing graphic content, finding imagery, layout.

• Custom coding, technical setup, email signature.

• Visual identity: businesscards, wordmark, submark, icons, illustrations, social media banners.

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Visual identity – versatility:

Paperline for Nightowl Denmark

Wordmark and icons on extra thick business cards with matching orange middle.

Submark with tagline

Wordmark and Submark

The geometrical icon that reflects everything in the company name – owl, horizon, sun/moon, aka your evening guided tours. The imagery and illustration support the ‘why’ in an emotional sense. Nightowl emphasises the use of our senses and dedicates every guided tour, to experience and feel in balance. The new identity oozes curiosity and zen.

The nordic colour palette is a modern take on the Danish colours of nature. Orange, sky blue and a subtle beige for sundowns and sea green for our Scandinavian coloured ocean. Every colour can be coupled with another constituting a belief that each can belong - there is something for everyone.

Guides have, as a tradition, a bright red jacket on. We challenged this by creating an energetic orange, thus binding all aspects together from print, web to merchandise.

Webdesign – one page scroll and individual pages:

Images with great angles.

Nordic minimalism. A light beige background to soften up the over-all appearance.

Content heavy pages – clean and user-friendly layout:

Custom made icons that reflect a Nightowl Denmark experience. Fonts with great versatility and legibility

Responsive design – viewports:

Brand colours represented on each experience (guided tour)

Taking a brand further with a long-term design strategy.

This includes making the design guidelines flexible for usage on all platforms, be timeless and consist of more than just a logo.

Inspired by Jørgen’s vision I decided to make his brand stand out with a strong reference from nordic minimalism. Signature colours and an an illustration consisting of various icons combined. Much like what you can expect when on a guided tour with Nightowl Denmark.

This illustration (see above) carves a line across the media – like the social banners that Jørgen can choose between to make his social media dynamic – combined with the wordmark and copywriting, makes for a distinct visual expression, supported by the Nightowl values.

So much is happening on Squarespace!
If you need assistance, feel free to reach out.

Untill next time.
/ Ciao, C

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Visual concept, copywriting, assisting with business ideas and strategy

'Welcome'-page with banner, action buttons and a modern navigation to the left, shown with lines, wrapped up in a white frame.
A one-page-scroll website, consisting of 5 pages in a long scroll and 4 individual pages in a second navigation.

Throwback to this website i designed for 'Dinkropstid Erhverv' (Body sessions targeted for officepeople) where i was free to design and do what I do best. Overseeing every detail in a harmonic collaboration – these are my absolute favourite projects!
 

Only two requests, was to implement an earthy beige tone and a minimalistic design

Clean nordic design, balance, space and going for that little extra, in every project, is my speciality. This time, I went with a dark green for all buttons and fonts. Choosing images with no background fuzz to carve out my client's main concept; relief to office related body aching. I edited them from color to soft greys and photoshopped a pink color to show areas with pain.

Ann-Britt had a logo. This is used on her other website dinkropstid.dk. But i took the liberty to change it's color from grey to dark green and only use the submark. Often times, logos come without any guidelines or longterm design thoughts behind. So I am the creative, who ties the knot, modernizes and makes the designs come together.

Keeping the visual concept on all images, means a lot of photoshopping. At handover, the client always gets the original stockimages and the edited, for social media usage. It's important to be able to help with the over-all expression and keep the appearance on every medias ad platform, coherent. That's what concept development means ;-)

Action-banner to inform of client's other website and field of exertise. Keeping a bit of the color in big banner images through-out the site. Consistency is key.

Use of the logo submark to bring natural breaks and space. Copywriting and choosing fonts with great versatility

Website footer (bottom with contact information) columns and caps.
Big banner images, with parallax-scrolling.

Pop-up contactform activated by an action button.

The 'About'-page: 2-column design on all other text-heavy pages on the website.

As you may come to notice, i have written a few words to Ann-Britt Dam about her bodysessions. I
rarely do recommendation – unless they really truly are THAT GOOD. She deserves it! Keeps my body in check.

So much is happening this year on Squarespace!
If you need assistance, feel free to reach out.

Untill next time.
/ Ciao, C

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