A start-up’s short story ended, but a business fairytale has just begun
The visual and content transition of BroHouse from blog to site-blog came naturally after we had realized that we successfully passed the start-up milestone. A moment like this can’t be noted with an “x” in the calendar; it was all a process which ended after 2 years with a series of… definitions. Doesn’t seem much? Nothing can be more important! It’s about defining our own set of values, our work-flow, sales channels, post-sales customer relations – finally, our BroHouse identity. This may sound a cliché, but we wouldn’t have been here without the support of our friends and partners who were involved in this project. Thanks, Bros!
Visual 3B
This is how we can summarize what we call “Brand-new BroHouse Brand”. Beside the clear and intuitive visual design, our new site comes with some new elements that need to be emphasized:
Voting. You can now vote for your favorite post. You might not post a comment, but the easiest way to let us a feedback, in case you like it, just click on the button placed at the end of every article. Secondly, your vote is helping us for counting correctly the most popular post.
Built-in chat box. We’ve always been open to feed-back and suggestions. Not only that we kept this concept, but we’ve improved it: now you can contact any of our team members directly from the site.
History. Beliefs. Creative process. So far we have been focusing our attention on telling the story behind each project we got involved in, but we overlook to share the BroHouse story. Therefore, our new content strategy was focused on detailing the BroHouse history, our values, believes and creative process.
(left: Horia Oane, center: Emanuel Lainas, right: Costin Oane)
Further on we will let you discover any other news, by visiting the site.
Meanwhile, we’re going back to work.
Approach
Here’s the long awaited project of the winner ‘Dream your logo‘. Gabriel Bercea is the one who convinced us that the project behind its story deserves an identity. He won this competition and we had to create the visual identity for its project from zero.
Immediately after the winner announcement we wanted to know the person ‘Gabriel Bercea’. We met over a cup of tea where he made an introduction to the story of his startup: the difficulties, achievements and opportunities of his project. The collaboration was characterized by trust and openness to communication.
What is Kasardia?
Kasardia is an infrastructure service, which allows collaboration among diverse entities (people, companies, etc…) through file transfers. Kasardia offers support for diverse file transfer protocols, but also for the best knows cloud storage services such as Windows Azure or Amazon S3. Also the service offers the possibility of backing up your important data, version it or synchronize date among devices and storage entities.
Naming
When the work started, the project wasn’t “baptized” in any way, so we’ve tried to give a huge attention to the name. We admit that naming gave us the biggest headaches, because after several discussions with Gabi we have concluded that we must create a unique name that is simple and easy to remember. Most of the suggestions that came up durring the naming procces were allready purchased, that’s way the process was running low. After several attempts we got the name Kasardia, which provides all the ingredients of a good name.
Logo
The symbol of the logo is constructed in a minimalst-abstract way. Gabi was interested in a logo that is very simple, elegant and sober. Being focused on the middle and top management segment, the logo proposed transmits now attractivity , certainly, differentiation, as a premium product. The dominance of blue was designed to emphasize the elegance and professionalism.
The success of “Kasardia” was a sport team, based on trust, many meetings and discussions. It has been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. The photo captures the moment when we were doing the last small changes.
(left: Costin Oane, right: Gabriel Bercea)
A few words about the Contest Inspired 2009
Inspired is a national contest of ideas. The competition aims to identify, evaluate and launch the authentic values in several art areas: Graphic Design, Architecture, Photography, Dramaturgy, Accessories and Fashion. Inspired contest is already to the 3rd edition. The jury is composed of elite members from three areas, and besides then, the winners for each section of 2008. Details can be found on page www.concurs-inspired.ro.
Approach
For me, Inspired contest represented a challenge from the early beginnings, and for Costin as well. That’s why we wanted to participate individual to face ourselves the difficulties of the project. Building an identity for a low cost airline is a unique theme, which I couldn’t have it until then. I have been working many identities for many projects, but none for an airline-company. My project ranked 12th place, but the great joy came from Costin where he took the 5th place, with his project Aero Fly.
Until November 20 everyone had to delivered:
- Description / argument concept
- Name (competitors will propose a new name which is no longer used by a different airline)
- Logo (Type + symbol). Choice may be a combination of Type + symbol or just Type
- Branding plane
- Check-in house branding
- Branding & ticket envelope
- Poster template
- Key Visual
Solution
Before you start any work, you must have a name, obviously. Naming, in my opinion was the most difficult task in this project. Depending on it, you can go further and it offers directions in building a visual identity: simple, suggestive and creative. After many attempts I had the revelation of a name: Pioneero. The ambition to fly was one of the great aspirations for Romanian pioneers. The name refers to the best period of Romanian inventors, as Traian Vuia and Henri Coanda. They were “Icarus-s” of their generation, because for them their passion became their profession.
The logo concept starts from here, from the ambition and the triumph of each man to conquer the sky. The symbol of the logo is constructed in a minimalistic way, capturing the man exactly in the moment of his take-off. Logo radiates energy and it is not static. The logo has the ability to be easily remembered and used. Here are some insertions:
Few words about Inspired 2009
Inspired is a national competition for young talents to find affirmation and recognition fashion design, architecture, fashion photography, graphic design, dramaturgy and accessories design. Already at its 3rd edition, Inspired contest includes 6 sections: Graphic Design, Architecture, Photography, Dramaturgy, Accessories, Fashion. Yesterday, at Gala I could see the top 10 of all the sections, including my work. Here is the classification.
Approach
I watched the Inspired contest last year but this year Inspired caught my attention due to the section “Graphic Design”. Together with Horia (12th place) I participated individually at Graphic Design section where we had to build an identity for a low cost airline company.
Until November 20 everyone had to delivered:
- Description / argument concept
- Name (competitors will propose a new name which is no longer used by a different airline)
- Logo (Type + symbol). Choice may be a combination of Type + symbol or just Type
- Branding plane
- Check-in house branding
- Branding & ticket envelope
- Poster template
- Key Visual
Solution
“Aero Fly” identity is built on a strong set of values: comfort, safety, professionalism and, especially, joy / pleasure to travel. As each consumer is not defined as “aircraft passenger” but “the beneficiary of a pleasant flight. Each flight with Aero Fly offers a personality that makes you feel important and ready to ride on the plane.
The symbol is slim and elegant, that brings you in mind the idea of “flying”, Aero Fly is not any air traveler that takes you from point A and B,the ride is like a delicate wave, colored scarf blown by the wind against a clear blue sky. The symbol emphasizes the pleasure and comfort of each ride.
Something we should have said a long time ago, but better late than never. BroHouse soon realized that it is time to grow the team with a ‘web daddy “, in a context where is a general depression, and traffic and site performance are important as a well done identity.
It’s about Emanuel Lainas (mostly known as “Manu”), a super cool guy who worked at Metromind and uberVU. He will be in charge of Web Development and everything in between, but also to other development focused projects. We realized that besides creativity and efficient solutions, the real success of an identity is the way it is implemented on different print materials, and of course including web. We can say that Emanuel joined BroHouse since the beginning of 2009, and he won’t be the first or the last member in our BroHouse team.
BroHouse promises a nice surprise in early 2010 and this is supposed to be a new BroHouse image.
Welcome Manu in our brotherhood!
Dental View
Dental View is the most modern 3D imaging center in Bucharest. The clinic recently launched a quarterly “Dental Imaging Magazine”, the first one in Romania, and it intends to provide a source of information in the modern dental practice. More specifically, it offers the latest information in dental imaging, exclusive articles, interviews, case studies, information on the latest image analysis technologies etc.
Approach
The magazine needed an exceptional cover, a visual layout that was due to suggest exactly what modern 3D dental imaging is. Dental View understood the importance of a cover and from that moment we started the collaboration.
Solution
Being a dental imaging center, we have chosen to build a 3D tooth, suggesting the modern CT (Computer Tomography) technology available at Dental View. We tried to come up with an innovative solution to provide a computerized image of a regular tooth in the 3D volume space. The design is simple and clear. So here’s the magazine cover.
Prezentation campaign
The national campaign “Messages for Black Sea ” was initiated and run pro-bono by 4 ACE-pr & publicity to support National Institute for Marine Research and Development “Grigore Antipa” (Constanta). The main objective of the project is collecting funds for “Grigore Antipa” Institute, providing specialized equipment for investigation and breeding of threatened species, equipment that would be required to repopulate the Black Sea. Nowadays there are just 5 of the 26 fish species of commercial significance that can still be exploited from the Black Sea, including threatened species like shark, big pony, dolphin, seal, etc.
The “Message for Black Sea” campaign will run on TV, print and online - thanks to the partnerships with Realitatea Catavencu Group, Agora Media, Green Report, eOK.ro. The campaign is being supported by major partners such as Greenpeace, Advice Students and ASLS, Animotion – production studio, Smart Dance, promotional products company Aesop, workshop Mix, Sorescu& Mateescu law firm, subasalt.ro, media monitoring agency – Media Image and BroHouse – creative studio.
Approach
Looking for an agency to take care of visual identity for its project, 4Ace didn’t hesitate to call us. You may not believe, but the proposal to create the whole visual identity and to support this national project came up when the BroHouse team was taking a holiday on the golden sandy beaches of the Black Sea Coast of Romania.
The impression left by the Romanian seaside, determined BroHouse team to get back in Bucharest even more eager to start working. Right after the first meeting with the 4Ace Agency, we found out that it’s necessarily a full visual identity for the campaign, which involves visual identity, image building (print collaterals) and web design.
The campaign “Messages for Black Sea” was a true challenge for both companies.
4Ace agency declared itself very satisfied with the results obtained by BroHouse.
Solution
Visual identity
BroHouse wanted to address an intelligent visual solution for this national project. The logo combines elements of flora and fauna from the Black Sea, maritime symbols, but also stylized images will make you thinking about the seaside holidays, right? “The element of surprise” of the logo is actually the international symbol of peace; it’s as if it’s trying to militate against environmental disaster and chaos in the Black Sea. Even though we know that campaign is facing a real and very dramatic situation, we’ve tried to keep a note of optimism and positive change, choosing true life colors, pleasant and optimistic.
Image Building
The quality of proposals recommended by BroHouse determined 4 Ace Agency to incorporate in this campaign two posters: a more sober one, with a Black Sea picture, and another drawing, suggesting the idea that the Black Sea gradually tends to become a “fall” all narrow, due to pollution and overfishing. In other words this circle became increasingly narrow for flora and fauna that are “sentenced” to exist.
Web Design
The campaign website has a dual function: it’s facilitating access to a large amount of information about Black Sea issues and, perhaps most importantly, it offers visitors the opportunity to support this project. Accessing the website www.mesajepentrumare.ro you can buy various promotional items and all the funds that are obtained through this campaign will be turned into donations for the Institute.
The project takes place at this time. Here is the campaign TV spot “Message for Black Sea”:
Testimonials
What is Business Club?
Business Club is a community of young and passionate people that are fond of business and entrepreneurship, students who want to learn more about these fields and most important, students who want to apply what they’ve learned. The founders understood this need between students to develop specific skills and knowledge, to build their future career, communicating, sharing ideas and information with other young people interested and passionate about the same area. Each year, Business Club organizes three big projects with a great reputation in Romanian universities: Investment School, first school of investment in Romania, and two schools of entrepreneurship: Business School and Good to Go..
Approach
We met each other over a cup of coffee. Alexander Ghişe was fallowing BroHouse for some time because he had in plan to change the identity of Business Club. The discussion was a very nice and comfortable, because we know the NGO environment (Costin, 2 years member of Advice Students and Horia, 1 year and half member of Business Club). The collaboration was characterized by trust and open to communication. We are really happy for this collaboration, because Business Club needed a new identity.
Solution
The “business” concept is very difficult to add it in visual. We tried not to take a descriptive logo, so we chose an abstract logo. The concept must be based on a on an exceptional visual impact. For these capitalist heroes this is the ‘entrepreneurial flame’ of passion and creation, mostly responsible for success or failure of a business. You can’t also support such a tempo if you don’t have a “flame” for what you do. If you have in mind to create a business, take their example, turn on this flame that it will always give you energy and light.
Testimonial
We should congratulate all of you who participated in this competition. BroHouse is delighted to announce the long awaited winner. At this competition we had the chance to discover blogs and interesting projects.
It has been very difficult to pick up one story, because there were many stories that we liked. To be fair and transparent as possible choosing the lucky winner we have formed a hard jury of 8 people with great experience in antrepenoriat and very present in online.
The jury of “Dream your Logo” consists of:
Vlad Stan – Online Entrepreneur, Angel Investor and co-founder Seed Money
Vlad Nedelcu – Antreprenor and co-founder Arka Nuova
Raluca Georgescu – Business Director Navidoo
Octav Druță - Co-fondator Trigwee
Alexe Alexandru – Manager 360 Design
Radu Spineanu – Manager 2 Parale
Cristina Alexandru – Project Manager Startups.ro
Valeriu Bosneaga – Founder DesignsFlash
The jury gave marks to all projects that entered in this competition and to find the winner we took the score for each project entered. The winner who received the highest score and who convinced the jury that deserves the first place is Gabriel Bercea – Startup de Poveste
Other stories that were very close to winning today:
The second place goes to - Miruna Neaga – Mărgele cu dragoste and Katja- Logo pentru Katja
The third place – Rockul info – Muzica are nevoie de o imagine
Gabriel Bercea is asked to send us an email with contact details so we can start knowing each other and getting to work for his project as soon as possible. At Contact section you find emails, phone numbers and skype.
We thank to all participants and congratulate the winner!
BroHouse’s business cards are in the list of the most creative designs for business card, along with 40 other highly successful business cards, the list made by DesignrFix site. It is very pleasant and honored to know that we can be a source of inspiration for others.
We have always appreciated the design of a business card, firstly because it’s about you and then the company that are working for. Some people remain unique even from the moment you get a chance to know them, for the simple reason that you noticed the business card.
It is a proof that our work is seen and appreciated, even abroad. We advise you not to underestimate the power of business cards.
