O'Almacén Cultural
O'Almacén, 'The Warehouse' in galician, is a new cultural space and club in Vigo, Galicia (Spain). They offer a wide variety of activities for all ages, from a swing dance school, to a yoga master class. From a beer making course to a funk gig or an art exhibition.
We were comissioned to design their identity and to develop a visual language for all their communications: a template system that worked mostly on social media (ready for self management) and several print assets for the daily work and promoting their events in the space itself and the streets of Vigo.
The Building
O’Almacén owes its name to the location, a former fodder warehouse (after being a church and town council in the Second Spanish Republic era) in a working class neighborhood, Lavadores, with a beautiful classical stone facade dated 1911.
Logotype. Typography. Colors
The client wanted to somehow represent the humble legacy of the building in a non invasive way, keeping up the modern and minimal spirit they were already looking for.
We designed the identity and applications with the 'warehouse' concept in mind. We use the type choice as a design tool with the beautiful Timmons NY (designed by Matt Wiley), a muscular and tall headline font that helped us create the illusion of a shelve rack that works great for the complete logo and the 'monogram' version too. We used Lineto Brown and Source Serif Pro for other text needs, completing a nice and versatile type combination.
The identity also needed to be expressive and bold in the use of colors. We chose a vivid red as the main corporate one, combined with a cream yellow and a dark grey, more related to the architectural space (interior and facade stone colors).
The boxes
Once we had the basic elements of the identity ready, we needed another distinct graphic element to communicate the concept consistently through all the communication. We created a modular and mutant pattern inspired by the boxes in the shelves. It worked as a great tool in almost every application we designed, giving us tons of options for the posters and stationary, even for the more editorial design oriented stuff, like the monthly schedule.
