17th FINA World Championships budapest 2017 – visual identity

The design of the logo for the 17th FINA World Championships has taken into account the previously submitted work, but due to the new aspects that have arisen, it has been thoroughly revised. FINA strictly regulates the image of its events, so the elements on the right side of the logo were tied. The proportions of the lily shape were designed to make the best use of the space available. The organisers asked for the tricolour to appear in the logo, which we only allowed for the white background version. In building the identity, we had to keep the international FINA trademark in juxtaposition to the event logo, which presented us with many challenges in the graphic design. We created several versions of the logo for different uses, but also, for example, a separate version for the separate identity of the Balatonfüred event.

With regards to typography, we used the Hurme Geometric Sans 4 family, just as for the visual identity of the Olympic Games competition, to visually reflect a long-term sport strategy in Hungary. The task was also to design the emblem of the 17th FINA World Masters Championships, which is the championship of the age-group contestants. Since that is a completely different event organized in the same venues, we wanted to keep the different logos in a unified framework.

The editing of the 17th FINA World Championships Brand Book was very important because there were several national and international teams working at the event, and this “instruction manual” was a help for all participants to create a unified visual world. In addition to the elements of the brand identity that are usually used, we also regulated the graphic backgrounds, which were later expanded with many more details. These include the sport icons, which were designed along the same lines as the logo, thus keeping the identity coherent.

To promote the event, we were asked to design a stamp and accompanying envelope, a stamp and a more complex newspaper. The latter was also used as the basis for the World Championship special editions of National Sport.

The competition for the mascot was won by Tibor Tatai; we had to blend that with our visual identity elements with respect to their colours and their graphic styles. We have prepared the 3D version of the mascot, which could have been often seen by the international audience during the broadcasts.

The central venue of the World Cup is the Danube Arena, which was specifically designed to host such a world event. Two temporary stands have been added to the building, covered by a stretched printed banner. The facade graphics were inspired by the undulating architectural elements running through the building. The aluminium strips were continued graphically on the banner in different shades of grey, broken up by curving arches on the north and south facades. With this dynamic graphic play, we tried to create the tension of the World Cup event tearing the facade apart and stepping out of the plane of the building. In the design of the immediate surroundings of the Duna Arena, this motif consistently returns and dissolves the geometry of the logo, adding colour to the surfaces.

According to our original plans, the medals of the World Championships would have consisted of a combination of several colorful, plastic parts. The waves on the medals are concentrically swirling versions of the visual graphic elements used in the identity – that plan was transplanted into 3D with the Roomba team. Design Donum’s team provided assistance in finalizing the form and manufacturing the aluminium medals. Eventually, the customer had chosen another concept for the official prize for the World Cup, so this concept could only be realized as a medallion, which was used by the organizers for protocol events.

The medals were made of brass, the masterpieces were made by laminated erosion. The project was a design challenge for us as it was impossible to design a plastic transition between the depth levels, so we had to assign an erosion depth value and a particular surface treatment to the two-dimensional graphics. The curves visible on the medals were used not as a separate material, but as graphic motifs, which we tried to make more vibrant with fine grooves and polished surfaces. The medals also include the FINA and the event logos, as well as the graphics for lake Balaton and the river Danube on the medals awarded in either Budapest or Balatonfüred, respectively, as requested by the organizing committee.

FINA has launched the Fountain project as a tradition-making event, which will be produced by every country hosting the world championship in the future. This design was very exciting because we had a complete artistic freedom and we had to develop a completely new and abstract form. After making several plans, we finally introduced a concept that we developed in collaboration with the Design Donum team. The Olympic torch floated in front of us – like a similar example, but we wanted to emphasize the features of water. Implementation was a huge challenge for the contractors. The appropriate effect was achieved by making splash, foaming and vapour dominant, and the fine glittering on the raw steel was also able to prevail.