Accidental hipster interior (small text on the wall: "no bicycle storage").

Werklig staff wishes you all

Hyvää joulua!
God jul!
Merry Christmas!

We'll be mostly out of office during holiday season (until January 2nd 2012) – but in a case of emergency feel free to call or drop an e-mail.

Ho ho ho!

Out now: exclusive Werklig gift wrapping paper – 2011 Christmas edition. All you elves out there, come and get yours. You may also use wrapper as a poster. They're free!

Nyt saatavilla: Werkligin joulupaperimallisto 2011! Tule ja hae omasi. Paperi sopii erinomaisesti paketointiin, mutta halutessaan kääreestä saa jouluisen julisteenkin. 

We're open until Thursday 22.12 1800 1600 hrs. Welcome!
Toimisto avoinna torstaihin 22.12. klo 18.00 16.00 asti. Tervetuloa!

[edit: we're out-of-office earlier (see above). Well, there's a lot of paper left so you may get some for next year, too!]

Pekka of Finland is continuing the European tour. Bruxelles and Eindhoven are now behind and it's towards next destinations (Budapest, Luxenburg, Sofia, Athens, Berlin and Stockholm). So far the exhibition has had 46.500 visitors.  

Here are some pictures from setting up the Dutch Design Week exhibition.

Part of us have been on a 2-day workshop in Snappertuna. Magnificent seaside environment and a lot of of Post-Its. 

m⁵ architects is a young, Helsinki-based architectural practice with works ranging from furniture to urban planning. They have a wide experience and expertise in Building Information Modeling (BIM).

m⁵ architects are specialized in so-called five-dimensional planning, which means integrating traditional architectural 3D modeling with two other layers of variables (such as construction time and building costs). m⁵ architects asked Werklig to create an identity based on 5D concept. The identity needed to be extremely simple, usable and timeless – with the "5D" element visible.

Solutions
1. Logo

m⁵ logo is the key building block of m⁵ identity, the primary visual element that identifies the company. The logo is simple, but it has a subtle hidden message in it: a common square meter symbol (m²) has been flipped, thus creating a symbol for the five-dimensional approach of m⁵ architects.

"Hidden" visual pun in the m⁵ logo




Both English and Finnish logo versions were created

2. Colors

Corporate colors were picked from m⁵ architects' new premises interior. Strong vibrant orange, grays and white color were used to create a versatile palette.

m⁵ interiors were used as the basis of corporate color palette



m⁵ color palette

3. Typography

The final touch to the overall feel was made with typographical choices. m⁵ uses FF DIN as a corporate typeface. FF DIN is a robust and very legible typeface, with a technical/architectural twist. Using DIN is also a small cultural hint towards Germany–both M5 main designers have solid German roots, so what would be more suitable typeface for them? 

“DIN, an acronym for the German Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardization) [– –]. The earliest version of a DIN typeface was released by the D Stempel AG foundry in 1923. In 1936 the German Standard Committee selected DIN 1451 as the standard typeface for use in the areas of engineering, technology, traffic, administration and business.” (Source: FontFont)

Application examples

 
Business cards, set with DIN

Remember these, smelly-stickers from the 80's? You had a set of funny caharacters like the Oh-oh apple, and by scratching it, you got a nice scent of apples, or at least appleish (not the new-computer-smell that comes with unboxing an Apple computer ...that's nice too). 

I can still clearly recall some of the smells. Made the lessons in school nicer with the notebooks smelling like bubble gum. The artificial strawberry smell was quite addictive. Others harder to remember, probably because of a more abstract theme. I mean, how does a snow-man smell like?

Too bad smellprinters haven't yet become the current office equipment, possibly due to many challenges in the technology. Nontheless taste is under development. You could taste specific flavours by licking the paper. Funky!

How to use this then? Does a trademark-smell in link with a company or product make a greater impact? I feels like there's more and more customized smells floating around nowadays, and trademarked patents are old news. There's e.g. the freshly cut grass -smell trademarked for tennis balls. Easily makes you want to buy a new box, or play more tennis, for that matter. I guess, if your seeking for a patent to improve business, the smell itself and the context where it's used, should be more unexpected than the smell of strawberries in a beauty product. That one's been denied.

What about adding smell to web pages, digatally create a virtual stink? The smell of newly baked cookies, when entering a bakery-site, would make you feel quite at home? Other business areas are a bit questionable. I imagine some things work better without a distinktive odor shooting up your nose..!  

A bigger collection of scratc and sniff stickers @ bubbledog

Tonttu™ (elf) is a wireless remote controlled janitor, who takes care of your cabin (or house) 24 hours a day - all year, around the globe. It takes care of the heating management and keeps the energy consumption reasonable.

There Corporation contacted Luxus and Werklig past spring to create a marketing platform for their home energy management system service. They wanted us to brand their service. 

Technical excellence was already put in place by There. Service is really easy-to use and functions as it should be. So we dug deep to find what were the most appreciated key benefits for pilot users. It turned out that users really liked they were not to be forced to call somebody living near their home or cabin to check out to see if everything is ok. Instead they could see it easily online by themselves. Just like there was somebody taking care of their cabin already.

To build an image of a trustworthy, magical janitor of your home (or home away from home) when you're away, we came up with a concept of an elf, or Tonttu in Finnish. It is crafty embodiment of the service highlighting the key benefit of it.  

Tonttu is a service provided by There Corporation.

 

 

Tonttu-trademark. 

 

 

Mr. Tonttu streching his legs... apparently the house is in a controlled state due to his careful monitoring.

 

 

"Tonttu heats the cabin for you",  "Let Tonttu take care of it", "Tonttu watches when your away". 

 

 

Direct mailers, brochure and business cards. Notice the logo cut-out in the brochure cover. The material works as a ground for the upcoming marketing campaigns.

 

Aalto University's Design Contest for The Memorial Builders of The Future

Aalto University and the Association of Professional Graphic Designers in Finland Grafia and the Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo are cooperatively organising a design contest for a memorial to the donors who provided funds for the University’s endowment capital. The contest is open to Aalto students, staff members and alumni. 

The visual identity for the contest was designed at Werklig to fit under the visual identity of Aalto University, however also standing out as an own entity. The visual theme of the contest is built using Aalto University's brand colours combined with a caleidoscopic treatment of the basic geometric forms, which are also essential in the University's identity. This results in a fresh, yet very "Aalto", set of illustrations that are used throughout the applications of the identity. The silver finish was chosen to add a touch glamour.

Caleidoscopic illustration for the identity. 

Each language version has it's own "caleidoscope".

Example of a spread.