EUBKZGW
The European Sector Competence Centre for the Health Economy set out to open the European healthcare market to partners from Russia, Turkey, North Africa and the Gulf. Even in German, its name needs three lines. We set it up to stand just as firmly in every language and on every trade-fair stand, from Hamburg to Libya.
- Services
- Language versions of the brand
- Website in eight languages
- EUHCC website
- Trade-fair presence in four countries
- Wall graphics and roll-ups
- Ads in trade-fair catalogues
- Info panels, posters and icons
- Mailings
- Certificates
- Christmas card with hot-foil stamping
- Year
- 2013–2015
The centre saw itself as a gateway for everyone outside the EU who wanted into the European healthcare market. So it went where those partners are: to trade fairs in Russia, Turkey, Libya and the Gulf.
Every fair came with its own stand dimensions, its own language and often its own script.
Flag, bar, name: the logo sets a clear order. We carried it over into the local languages, from Cyrillic to Arabic, which reads from right to left.
So a stand builder in Russia puts the logo on his fascia, and it looks just as it does in Berlin.
- 01 / 06The flag sets the measure. The first line aligns with the top edge of the flag, and each further line follows at the same interval. So the name sits calmly beside the symbol, however long it gets.
- 02 / 06In English, two lines will do. The name gets shorter, the grid stays. Anyone who knows the German version recognises the English one at first glance.
- 03 / 06Russian needs four. The bar has room for 5 lines. Even the longest version is set in the same type size as the shortest.
- 04 / 06Turkish gets room for its characters. Dots and curves above and below the line live comfortably in the line spacing. Every letter has air, every measurement stays.
- 05 / 06Arabic reads from the right. Below the English, the Arabic name is ranged right and a touch quieter. Two reading directions, one logo, and everyone finds their name.
- 06 / 06Five languages, one sender. Flag, bar and line spacing stay; only the language changes. At every fair it is instantly clear who is exhibiting.
A trade-fair stand does its work long before anyone reads the logo. The visual places the bowl with the serpent inside the flag’s circle of stars, large, bright and almost always cropped.
So every surface belongs to the brand, from the trade-fair counter to the postcard.
- 01 / 03Twelve stars hold the bowl. The circle of the European flag surrounds the ancient symbol of medicine. Europe and medicine in one image, understood before you read a word.
- 02 / 03Cropped, the circle looks bigger. On the back of the Christmas card it runs off the edge. The card feels larger than it is, and the brand stays quietly in the background.
- 03 / 03Stamped, the symbol becomes tangible. For the foil stamp, the circle closes into a 35-millimetre square. You feel the stars under your finger before you see them.
Every hall had different walls: two wide panels in Hamburg, six narrow ones in Russia and Turkey, eight in Libya. The grid takes any measurement, the stand stays the same.
Anyone who met the centre at two fairs recognised it at the second.
- 01 / 05Hamburg sets the tone. Plenty of air, three info panels, each topic in its own field. Visitors find what they are looking for in passing, and stop right there.
- 02 / 05The map leads to Europe. In Russia, a map runs across three panels from Asia to the Atlantic coast. Anyone standing in front of it sees at a glance where the centre builds bridges.
- 03 / 05Turkey gets the same wall. Same structure, different language. The next fair is a translation, not a new design.
- 04 / 05In Libya, the joint falls between the words. ‘Your Gateway’ and ‘to Europe’ sit on two panels. The joint splits the line exactly where you would draw breath anyway.
- 05 / 05Four fairs, one handwriting. Side by side at the same scale, the differences show: other formats, other languages, other audiences. Yet you recognise the sender on every wall.
Anyone in Russia, Turkey or Libya looking for a partner in Europe looks online first. The website speaks every language of the fairs and is built the same way in each.
The sender at the top, Potsdamer Platz below, news from the network alongside. Anyone handed a card at the fair finds the same look online.
Alongside the centre, the European Headquarters of Competence Centers, EUHCC for short, appeared in English and for all of Europe. A name of its own, the same ambition.
Clear columns, plenty of white space, navigation at the side. Anyone who knows both websites can tell they come from one house.
‘Your Gateway to Europe’s Healthcare Market’ appeared in every trade-fair catalogue, in the language of the country. The layout stays, the line takes the room its language needs: in Turkish it grows longer, in Russian one line taller.
Invitation mailings brought it to visitors in advance, around 2,400 letters for Hamburg and 970 for Turkey.
Long-term archiving, funded projects, patient surveys: the centre’s topics take some explaining, and at a trade fair there are only seconds for it. Each one got an icon drawn with the same line.
The cloud with the shield, the per cent sign with the arrow, the tick on the tablet: they say what it is about before you have read the first sentence.
The certificate for advisory board members sets the word vertically along the edge, with stars and bowl in the background. Only the name of the appointee stands in the middle.
Restraint is the most courteous form here: the honour belongs to the one receiving it.
For a reception in Berlin we made a roll-up that greets guests in fourteen languages, from Russian and Arabic to Japanese, criss-crossing like a buzz of voices. Everyone finds their language before they find their host.
At the end of the year the circle of stars came back, hot-foil stamped on the Christmas card. Europe you can touch.
Planning something similar? info@vertikahl.com