In 2014, the three colleges Westerdals (design, art direction, advertising), NISS (performing arts, sound, film) and NITH (technology) joined forces to create the new college Westerdals Oslo school of Arts, Communication and Technology. The goal of the new school is to create a leading educational institution in Europe where students from all faculties are encouraged to work together.
When three seemingly completely different institutions merge, the main challenge when designing their new identity is to create something new and unique, that still somehow includes the qualities of the three schools that form the merger.
THE CREATIVE PULSE The new Westerdals Oslo ACT is a school with 5 faculties that teach different subjects, with different students and different mindsets. But there´s a common de-nominator in the enthusiasm they share for their field of study. We wanted to tell this story of different people connected through a mutual creative passion. As the beating heart is a common symbol for passion, we used the beats from a heart monitor to visualize a heart beat in the shape of different Ws for each faculty. These five Ws together form the logo for Westerdals Oslo ACT. Separately, the unique Ws work as pulse signatures and logos for the individual faculties.
BRAND PATTERN The Ws is also implemented in various sizes and thickness in a set of different brand patterns that are used on everything from notebooks to signage. These patterns are a characteristic touch that adds to the uniqueness of the identity.
WESTERDALS DISPLAY To strenghten the visual signature of Westerdals, we adapted the style of the Ws to create a custom made display font that´s supposed to be used together with the profile font Founders Grotesk. By replacing a few characters in headings with the display font, Westerdals gets a playful twist to their editorial designs.
