Lviv Book Forum is international forum for publishers, international partners Hey Festival, Great Britain, USAID-supported one of the main cultural festivals of the country and one of the most significant literary festivals in Central and Eastern Europe.
BookForum was held from October 6 to 9, 2022. But due to the full-scale invasion of Russia, organizers had to change the event format. Speakers, dignitaries, and journalists were broadcast from the bomb shelter. So instead of visiting live meetings, a lot of people could join online worldwide broadcasts. In addition to the new format, BookForum needed to create the brand identity of the festival so that the identity would reflect the reality of the war in Ukraine.
Lettering for the logo, with decorative elements that are traditional for the Ukrainian font style, was developed based on 25 equal modules, symbolically including 24 regions of Ukraine + Crimea in this concept.
The font was made monospaced, paying tribute to the Ukrainian’ Samvydav’ era of the 60s. When authors did not have the opportunity to publish their works in their native language due to Soviet censorship, they printed them on their own. And then people secretly reprinted them on typewriters, where only such monospaced font was.
The functional elements of the identity are also built on the same modular principle as the font (a circle, books on a shelf, an anti-tank hedgehog) which form a complete design system.
The Roman numerals that form the number 29 (as this BookForum is the 29th) are also built according to the same corporate identity font system.
Gradient blue is the main color. It represents the image of a clear sky, which is obscured by smoke (a gray texture on the identity) after yet another missile strike or coming from Ukrainian books burned by the occupiers. Yet, at the same time, this very blue carries a bit of sacredness, symbolizing heavenly light and a sense of cleansing from filth – read: from Russians on our lands. The textures co-exist together, but the blue is trying to break out of the smoky gray texture, so it dominates.
BookForum’s identity does not exist in a vacuum but interacts with the world. It’s not just posters or social media visuals. It’s an authentic interaction, augmented reality, if you will. On some mediums, for example, instead of a blue tone, we integrate the real sky. Or we use tape on the windows in visualization, which, unfortunately, has already become a standard part of Ukrainian life. Every Ukrainian sealed his windows at home to protect them from breaking after the explosion. Even the trains and buses have their windows sealed with tape. Thus, with the help of visual language, we tried to explain to the world community what and why is happening in Ukraine now.
