Firm： blank studio / wayfinding studio

Type： Residential › Multi Unit Housing

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2022

SIZE： 100,000 sqft - 300,000 sqft

BUDGET： Undisclosed

The wayfinding system for Cracow’s Resi4Rent building on 3 Maja Avenue – a residential investment with units for rent – is a project that introduces elements of graphic collage into the area of wayfinding.

On the developers’ market there are currently many residential projects that resemble each other. Our primary goal was to distinguish this particular investment through interesting and aesthetically pleasing graphic solutions. We referred to the historical character of the city, and the location of the investment. Cracow’s Planty Park, with which Resi4Rent is adjacent, is the most beautiful green part of Cracow. The graphic concept, taking into account the appearance of botanical illustrations. It is a conventional continuation of the greenery and vegetation found around the building.

In the process of design work, we decided to prepare a set of original illustrations-collages. The main botanical part of which is based on the delicate and ethereal illustrations of the famous botanist and artist Otto Wilhelm Thome. He was an author of the classic position “Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz”, which once fell into our hands in one of Krakow’s antique shops. We have chosen those that relate as closely as possible to the plants present in Cracovian folklore. To balance the eclecticism achieved by the collages, we contrasted the illustrations with the modern typeface GT Flexa, designed by Grilli Type. A Bold style was used for Polish-language messages, while Regular was used for English-language messages.

Both the colors and materials we envisioned for this project have a natural feel. It complements many of the interior architecture elements present in the building. Within some of the communications, plywood has been used, which gives the elements made of it a spatiality. From the front it is painted/varnished to give it the desired color, while the sides of the material remain raw. Graphics are a combination of shades of green and pink, text messages to maintain the best possible contrast are painted black.