Task
Our task was to create the identity and visual system for the festival «Nizhny Novgorod — Capital of Russian Design, ” as part of a competition organized by the Union of Designers of Russia and the School of Design.
Who Are We?
Taras Balabayev — Art Director and Project Initiator. He dove deep into the research, established the conceptual foundation, and guided the visual direction for the entire team.
Ilya Lang — was responsible for ensuring the visual elements went beyond being mere images on a screen. He created mockups and brought them to life through video generation and animation.
Boris Zhuravlev — took charge of the primary visual identity: he developed a robust design system and handled the majority of the wireframes in Figma.
Coordination with HSE
The project was largely independent, yet the professors at the university, particularly Alexander Alekseev, provided us with substantial support.
Design Weekend
To sharpen our professional skills in territorial branding, we attended a specialized conference in Rostov Veliky for a design retreat. It was there that we met Alexey Druzhnin, who advised us to consult specialists to help us grow professionally while working on the project.
Brand Research
We conducted an in-depth study of the cultural life of Nizhny Novgorod—including local hotspots, street art, brands, and traditional crafts—to identify key associations.
During discussions, we selected the «golden circle» concept as the most successful and multifaceted, so we began implementing it.
Final Concept
Workflow Process
Borya focused on visual design and developing the visual style. Many options for the final logo were created and filtered.
Midterm options
Don’t forget to have fun…
They also developed a text-based version.
Ilya primarily focused on visualizing real-life content and creating mockups.
Initially, numerous photographs from Nizhny Novgorod were sourced to ensure that the mockups placed against these backgrounds felt the most authentic.
Next, we looked for billboards where outdoor advertising could be placed. We wanted to find the most unusual or comical billboards to create a sort of Easter egg hunt.
