Gutenbergschule Frankfurt
In the second year of apprenticeship as media designer, the trainees at Gutenberg School Frankfurt are given the project work of designing a new visual identity for their school. For this purpose, a concept is to be developed that presents the Gutenberg School as an umbrella brand and its 4 school types as sub-brands.
We worked in groups on the task in 2021 during Corona pandemic and Gutenberg School's 100th anniversary, with everyone first submitting their own designs for a new logo and then the teams working together to create a full corporate design.
School: Gutenbergschule Frankfurt (Germany)
Team: Jan, Laura, Sebastian, Marvin (11MP2)
Year: 2021 (Class 2020 / 2021)
My tasks: Poster Design, Motion Graphics, Presentation
Collaboration on: Logo Design, Visual Identity
The Gutenberg School was named after Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of letterpress printing, because it mainly provides apprenticeship in printing and media technology, among some other fields. The current logo primarily represents the historical background, but no longer does justice to the current development of digital media and the design trends that the trainee media designers also implement at our School.
After analyzing the current logo and school values, we started to create the first logo designs. Among some drafts, we liked the fourth concept of the above 4 presented options the most and we elaborated it further.
In order to give our 4 school types concept even more expression, we decided to add another color tone to the logo marks, which always emphasizes one of the 4 fields. This was also a good decision, since there are already countless logos that work with same simple shapes, which we used for our logos and thus counteracted the danger of confusion.
The individual shapes that make up the pattern are different sizes and point in various directions. It illustrates that the media industry as well as the types of schools are diverse and made up of various career fields. Each student will take a individual path in their careers and achieve different skills. The fact that there are significantly fewer green shapes in the design is consistent with the logos and picks up on the aspect of specialization.
Gutenberg's revised painting, on the other hand, can be interpreted differently. His aggressive reaction is based on the fact that part of his painting has been torn down (the poster tear is part of the print). Equally, it stands for exciting media, advertising and marketing, which stimulate analysis and discussion. It could also make an ironic reference to Frankfurt. Because there are many people who have a rather negative and cold image of Frankfurt. Yet it is one of the most progressive cities in Europe. Lastly, it was just a good fit that behind the poster tear, the pattern comes out, because key visuals, along with logos, reflect the identity of a brand just as strongly as the eyes reflect the identity of a person.
The school slogan "We don't write history, we realize it" indicates that the lessons are not only theory-based, but also very practical.
