What's interesting
The project is state-backed, representing an enormous and respected institution that operates on fundamental social needs of residency — which only emphasises how bold, even subversive, a change the company's authorities have decided upon.
What's interesting
For a brief moment in the initial design sketches, there were two concepts for the name – "naj m" (najem) and "do m" (dom). "Naj m" obviously won, since it's more thematically fitting and has better structure and narrative potential.
What's interesting
After sign-off, the client's entire board changed. The project was then re-pitched from scratch to people who had never seen it.
What's interesting
The previous "brand" had two names. Each was five words long. Combined, they almost formed a sentence.
Designer’s insight
“This is one of the few projects I create strictly in Polish, which is a challenge in itself — Polish is a remarkably difficult language to work with in mainstream marketing. It sort of forces you to operate at a higher intellectual register, which, in this case, we actually pulled off. "Naj m" is, on one hand, such a brilliant name that I'm genuinely surprised no one thought of it before me, and on the other, such a tricky one to handle that I'm surprised the client agreed to it — though, needless to say, I'm absolutely thrilled that they did. All that said, I feel an incredible sense of satisfaction with this project and with the opportunity to bring such vivid, such genuinely uplifting communication to life.”
— Mariusz Ruciński,
Brand Identity Architect + Verbal Designer
“naj m® was the first project in the studio where I closely collaborated with another person. Kamila's experience helped us systematise the project well and bring more professional polish to it. I certainly learned a lot during this time. As for the project itself, the idea of using flat floor plans was actually mine and I'm very pleased with it, as I think it's rather unusual and rarely used symbolism in this context.“
— Jakub Góra,
Graphic Designer
“Actually, it was my first time working with the studio and with a finalised verbal design, which was really interesting, because typically the design would take the lead, but in the first phase of this project there was a strong tussle in my mind about what was more important. I remember one comment on the call: "the slogans are too small, they're the most important thing here" and I was a bit surprised – it was something new for me. What I also found interesting was that when starting the project, I had something more institutional, organisational, perhaps even a bit corporate in mind, but it turned out the client saw it completely differently and steered the project more towards something strongly campaign-based (placing photos in cut-out shapes) and friendly (illustrations). And it also showed how a simple project and graphic concept – randomly generated shapes that adapt to different media – can be difficult and complicated to implement across many formats, and how an apparently simple technique then needs to be thought through, essentially reinvented, everything recalculated, and rules created for something that initially just looked nice and simple. Now the entire system for creating these rectangles is based on grids that are formed by dividing the medium into 35 micromodules.“
— Kamila Staniszewska,
Senior Graphic Designer
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