typestorming

A report on the move Thomas Pamminger

2010August 17

Back and Cover.

It seems we reported on the WHS annual report for 2008 only yesterday. Since then, a lot has happened for this upstanding institution, and long time client of wollzelle, including the massive consolidation of four separate offices into a building of their own — designed afresh, no less.

Because changing buildings is also about changing perspectives, and finding enriching new ways to work together, we made the move, and the people behind it, the star of this year’s show.

One of the most striking elements of the “Lagebericht 2009,” as it is known to the locals, is the cover, which also acts as its packaging. Reading the document entails tearing away a strip of paper, as if to open a box, thereby physically introducing the reader to the report’s salient themes: movement, discoveries, collaboration. While the outside features an image of the previous WHS headquarter, the inside offers an exploration of the institution’s new surroundings, immediately rewarding interaction and engaging the eye.

Index of contents.

Content.

Diagramms.

Title opener.

Details.

While the predominantly green colour palette obeys the WHS’ branding guidelines and immediately dispels any uncomfortable — and inaccurate — associations with retirement homes, hospitals and illness, the daring typography breaks the report’s clear structure into legible and attractive chunks. The clean sans-serif-based layout is peppered throughout with hand-written titles, pencilled graphs and flat saturated colours to convey a sense of perspective and energy, without sacrificing mathematical precision where it is needed.

Our collaboration with Franco Winter, brought to life the many portraits that enliven and shape the report, in stark contrast with last year’s urban still lives. After celebrating some of the organisation’s most iconic and representative clients, we have opted to focus on its administrators and caregivers without whom none of this machinery could be set in motion. Staff are depicted in their everyday setting, performing the very relatable tasks of carrying papers, enjoying a cup of tea or peeking at the sunny views outside the window, carrying on the document’s overall message. It should be noted that, continuing our tradition, all these snapshots are genuine, proving once again that authenticity never goes out of style.

We hope you enjoy reading this report as much as we enjoyed crafting it. You can download the WHS Lagebericht 2009 in PDF format.

As always, we tip our hats to the WHS and its associates, for their efforts and accomplishments, and welcome your comments.

European Design Award 2010 Thomas Pamminger

2010June 11

Last Sunday the best of graphic design, illustration and multimedia design in Europe were honoured at the European Design Awards Ceremony in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This ceremony is the crowning event of the ED-Festival, a 3-day conference organised around lectures given by speakers and graphic design celebrities from all over Europe. The festival travels every year to a new city in Europe. After Athens, Stockholm, and Zurich, Rotterdam hosted the festival from 28 to 30 May 2010. Images from the Award Ceremony.

The European Design Award Catalog 2010

We are pleased to announce that we received a bronze trophy in the category Publications/Annual Report for the WHS Lagebericht 2008 and the website for the St. Gilgen International School made it to the list of finalists.

WHS Lagebericht 2008

WHS Lagebericht 2008, details

St. Gilgen International School website

About the award

The European Design Awards is the comprehensive annual awards organization acknowledging the best of graphic design, illustration and multimedia design in Europe. It is based on a collaboration of 14 prestigious communication design magazines in Europe who have taken upon them to support and promote the event. Representatives of these magazines compose the jury: 2+3D (PL), Design Austria (AT), Design Week (UK), +design (GR), Elephant (Int), étapes: (FR), Grafik Tasarim (TR), idpure (CH), KAK (RU), Novum (DE), Progetto Grafico (IT), TYPO (CZ), Visual(ES), BNO Vormberichten (NL).

Signing in at the WHS Thomas Pamminger

2010March 03

The Wiener Hauskrankenpflege have recently merged their four separate offices into a newly refurbished five story building in Vienna’s twelfth district. We are honoured to report they turned to wollzelle to design an original wayfinding system that would match their brand, echo their personality and, of course, get staff and visitors to their destination as painlessly as possible.

To reflect the brand’s caring, relatable personality, we opted for warm hues and a geometric, open typeface. Furthermore, we forewent signage pomposity in favour of a straightforward, idiomatic style that draws its inspiration from regional sayings and mannerisms, raising the occasional chuckle and making an official building feel that much more like a home. Its logical colour palette and straightforward family of pictograms can be easily extended as the organisation adds new services, moves existing ones, or even adds an entirely new wing to the building.

The Process

Below is a peek at the many plans, diagrams and mock-ups we wallpapered our office with to arrive at the final result. We used multiple complementary techniques from blueprinting to 3D modelling, to cover all our bases and approach the same problems from multiple perspectives:

Laying out the flow and logic of each floor

Workers were provided with detailed mounting plans.

An overview of the full pictorial system we developed.

final design

Below are some images of the signage system in action. More shots can be seen on our flickr photostream.

A no-nonsense approach to information in the Lobby

The Lobby in perspective | “Come on in!” door sign

Remember to silence your cell phone! | The little boys’ (and girls’) room.

“Enquire here,” at the Reception Desk

“Let’s talk about it” says the meeting room door

The Psychology offices

No office is complete without a kitchenette

“Where things happen” proclaims the Event Room

A brief floor directory and the door to the IT room

Tun Sie sich was Gutes Thomas Pamminger

2009May 19

We at wollzelle are honoured to entertain a long-term creative relationship with the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege, a non profit organisation that provides home care services in and around Vienna, our hometown. In fact, they have been client of ours since I got on board with them as part of his civil service.

Not only are they a very worthy cause to support, they entrust us with a wide variety of tasks, ranging from interactive design to the production of promotional items. As a creative agency, we like to “mix things up” and the WHS gives us plenty of opportunities to do just that, both in terms of form and function.

Case in point, our latest project: turning a potentially dry document (their 2008 annual report) into an engaging whole that would reflect the warmth and energy that radiate from the institution and empower its staff.

Having complete control over the project allowed us to take many liberties not usually seen with such documents: out with the traditional white gloss stock and in with a natural, lightly processed paper to emphasise the group’s down-to-earth approach.

Working with Ursula Röck, a highly talented, unconventional photographer and friend, we created a collection of unexpected still lives taken at their clients homes, reflecting the everyday reality of those the WHS supports, and emphasising how small touches converge to dramatically improve their overall quality of life. Each shot is both a work of art in itself, and a powerful testimonial of life in Vienna today.

Of course, a report isn’t all fun and games. By bringing design into the visual representation of data, turning pie charts and graph bars into silhouettes and cartoons, we were able to directly link the data with what it represented, thereby facilitating its understanding. Strong type structures the pages and links together the various sections of the report.

High-end printing techniques, such as UV varnishing, completed the effort, and allowed the text to become a de facto design element, working with instead of against the report’s layout.

You can see the results in our Flickr Photostream and a little Video from the production.

Design is all about making quality content approachable, and we can think of no better content to work with. The WHS’ 2008 annual report is part official document part catalogue, showing both the human and financial aspects of this respected institution, in a single go.

whs promotional items Christina Fried

2009January 28

In the fall of 2008, we were busy designing and orchestrating the production of a great many promotional items bearing the colours of the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege, an agency that provides home care services in and around Vienna, our hometown. The aim was to create tokens and presents for clients and personnel (e.g. calendars, sticky-notes, pens, watches, umbrellas…), which could also be handed out at certain events.

The wooden pen depicted above is doubly special. Indeed, the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege operates hand-held terminals to organise and control work protocols meaning clients, who are often elderly, are required to sign on a screen to confirm various actions. This wooden pen has been specially designed to work with this modern technology, all the while providing a comfortable, familiar sensory experience. Furthermore, it was manufactured by volunteers enrolled in a special care programme.

We at wollzelle loved this project, in no little part because of its diversity — each object had unique design and production requirements. From a visual standpoint, our personal favourite is the green umbrella, because it allowed us to introduce a new typographic device for the WHS, thereby instating a shorter, purely visual mark that can be placed on objects too small to support the full word-mark effectively.

Stay tuned for more, and be sure to check out the latest WHS magazine issue, which will roll off the presses in the coming days.

New WHS website launched Thomas Pamminger

2005April 24

The new website of the Wiener Hauskrankenpflege is now online. The site is tuned to be as accessible as possible, so that clients that have disabilities can access the information easily. We think that accessibility and cool design can work great together.

fotoshooting Christina Fried

2004October 26

Together with Franco Winter we composed 10 ad campaign images for WHS a non-profit organisation assisting older people at home and improving there everdays life.

All of the actors on the sujets are amateurs (employees, parents of employees and even clients of the WHS). It was a great experience.

Setting up the scene:

The final image: