Lozenets District

Refreshing the identity of one of Sofia's oldest disctricts.

Visual Identity + Spacial Design + Consultation & Supervision

Industry:

Govermental

Year:

2020

project info

We were invited to do a brand refresh of Lozenets District, one of the most important and central districts in the Sofia Municipality (Bulgaria).

Lozenets is a district located in the heart of Sofia. The affluent neighborhood is surrounded by public parks and a significant part of its territory is occupied by low-rise residential buildings with small and charming gardens. The district is a cross point between nature, cultural heritage and residential environment.

Symbol & Logotype

The name "Lozenets" comes from the Bulgarian word for vine – "лоза". The vine leaf, as a symbol, reflected the spirit of the entire district – quaint residential areas with flourishing greenery. An interesting fact is that a lot of the houses in the neighbourhood have vines covering their facades.

The symbol of the vine leaf had to be portrayed in a graphic style which indicated that Lozenets District is still an administrative institution and part of the Sofia Municipality. The final result was a modern interpretation of heraldic symbolism.

The logotype is based on the Sofia Sans typeface. A modern condensed sans serif font with a natural feel. In order to create the perfect balance between the graphic style of the symbol and the logotype we modified the font by adding small and delicate serifs.

Colors

In the past, the district name was "Korubaglar" (which means "vineyards in the woods"). The current name "Lozenets" is constructed from the Bulgarian word for vine – "лоза". By depicting the etymological history of the district we've created a contemporary palette inspired by the green and purple colors of the local grape sort Vitis Vinifera.

Typography

Since the administrative information is bilingual, we had two main criteria for the typeface selection. Firstly, we needed a more condensed typeface family, in order to fit larger chunks of texts. Secondly, it had to support Bulgarian Cyrillic. The typeface that we've chosen is Sofia Sans – a sans serif variable font family, created by Lettersoup for a wayfinding signage project for Sofia Municipality.

Environmental Graphics

Our first environmental graphic highlighted the entire district in green and broke down the district into sections of each of the neighborhoods. Then, in these sections, we were able to pinpoint most of the famous landmarks and things worth seeing. The second environmental graphic is an interactive modular installation, that showcases interesting facts about the district. The facts were divided in four color-coded sections – Nature (green), Community (red), Heritage (yellow) and Education (blue). We designed a customised icon for each section, based on the symbol of the district.

Credits:

Creative Direction: Ivaylo Nedkov
Graphic Design: Tsvetislava Koleva / Atanas Giew
Animation: Atanas Giew
Client Service: Vera Schwartz / Desislava Gerasimova
Photography: FourPlus Studio / Alex Zhelyazkov
Interior Design: 7651 architects

Special thank you to Prof. Dr. Christina Borisova and Botyo Nikoltchev for consulting us.