On November 22, I was in Bucharest for a branding conference entitled “BrandCamp/Focus on the Branding Process.” Together with Arash, a sales colleague of mine, I gave a presentation about the role that typefaces play in a brand’s visual identity. The conference was organized by two companies from Romania, Grapefruit – “a branding and design consultancy” – and Evensys, a company of meeting and event planners. BrandCamp itself was a two day affair, with lectures on the first day and workshops on the second. I was just there for the first day, but this did allow me to hear all of the presentations, which were of quite a high caliber and quality.
Most of the presentation Arash and I gave were about specific solutions that Linotype offers its client range, so most of the information is freely available in various locations on Linotype.com or in printed issues of the Linotype Matrix. But here are two of my favorite slides:
Even these bits of small information are set in one of Nivea’s beautiful typefaces.
As a consumer, I really enjoy interacting with the Nivea brand. Their products are well designed, and their brand’s thoroughness is always apparent, even in the fine print on the back of their packaging. Would that all health and body care products have such a well-planned identity!
The 51 styles in the Neue Helvetica family.
Helvetica and its various incarnations (Helvetica, Neue Helvetica, Helvetica World, etc.) are so successful amongst designers in part because the families offer a toolkit of the broadest sort.
I have already found some buzz on the blogosphere (and on the internet in general) about the conference. Unfortuantely, almost all of the press is in Romanian, which I cannot read. Furthermore, all of the Romanian to English online translators that I have been able to find are completely ineffective. So while the following pages look nice, I haven’t the slightest idea what their content actually says ;-)
Some photos of the first day’s lectures have been posted on Jobsessive.com, including the one pictured above, where Arash seems to be listening to me gesticulating about something or other.
Adrian Mironescu posted a few pictures on his blog as well: http://mironescu.blogspot.com/. The picture above is from Alina Wheeler’s book, Designing Brand Identity. She was one of the speakers at the conference, but the lucky owner of this copy had all of the presenters sign it. My signature is around that outline of a G.
Paul Maior also has recapped some of the conference on his blog, as has Lucian Marian on his.
Diana Ceausu, a student in Bucharest, won a free ticket to the conference. She has a nice blog, but not much mention of BrandCamp itself.
One of the conference organizers contacted me before hand about reprinting some of my writing in the local media in order to help promote the event. I provided the text of my most recent article from the Linotype Matrix. What seems to be a Romanian summary of it was printed in the newspaper Cotidianul. The article text has also been re-posted here and here.
Websites from a few of the other speakers:
David Davis (Minale Tattersfield)
Shahar Silbershatz (Karakter)
Tony Spaeth‘s Identityworks
Tom Vanderbauwhede (Lemento)
Alina Wheeler‘s website