Architects’ Council of Europe seeks designers for £30,000 visual identity
The architectural organisation requires a new visual identity to better reflect Europe’s “rich mix of people, cultures and architecture”.
The Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) is looking for designers to create an “all-encompassing visual identity”, as part of its updated strategy for the next four years.
ACE is the representative body for the architectural profession in Europe, which aims to monitor relevant policy and legislative developments. Established in 1990 in Treviso, Italy, the organisation now comprises 45 member organisations.
Across the continent, the council represents around 600,000 architects from 31 countries, according to ACE.
“Europe boasts a rich mix of people, cultures and architecture, tradition and innovation,” the organisation says. “The future ACE visual identity need to reflect that new perspective.”
Signalling a “new dynamic”
The call-out hopes to encourage “innovative and holistic thinking” for the organisation’s “new dynamic”, ACE says. “The design should embody a sense of the organisation’s pivotal role in European architectural practice,” it adds.
The organisation anticipates that the concepts will explore “visualising both the full name of the organisaiton and the acronym ‘ACE'” while also having a “fresh and easy” look, the council says. The visual identity will be bilingual; English and French.
Applications will be reviewed by an international jury comprising Austrian graphic designer Walter Bohatsch, ACE president George Pendl and DesignWorks founding partner Martin Gaffney.
Other jurors include ACE members Selma Harrington and Pavel Martinek as well as Prague-based graphic designer Jan Kosatko.
Application process
Graphic designers based in Europe are invited to submit examples of their work by 21 January 2021. The folder should include visuals of previous work and a short biography.
Five entries will be selected from this general call, and an award €4000 (£3,600) will be made to each of these candidates.
In February, the five candidates will be invited to present an identity concept to the jury in a 20-minute video call. This proposal should include the logotype, general look and feel for the identity, business applications and also how it will be applied across social media platforms.
ACE says that the concept for the visual identity will be judged on the following five criteria: quality, innovation, uniqueness, creativity and practicability. The eventual winner will create the new identity with a budget of €30,000 (£27,000).
This budget will cover the creative concept and the look and feel, ACE says. Once the identity is confirmed, a new partnership will begin to manage the identity roll-out.
Full details on deadlines and application requirements are available on ACE’s website.
An example of NOT what to do when considering rethinking an organisation’s identity. A competition, based on coming up with an ‘identity concept’, no doubt, a logo, for a generic fee of £3,600. In other words, the cart before the horse. We all know that in the world of architecture centres on competitions if a firm wins the ultimate budget can run into many millions of pounds. For identity design, the front end is where all the thinking is needed. The logo comes after. This is vacuous ‘committee’ thinking and an inadequate use of a poor overall budget.