Opinion BY Armin

Not Your Parents’ Librarians

With campuses in Copenhagen and Aalborg in Denmark, the Informationsvidenskabelige Akademi (IVA for short and “The Royal School of Library and Information Science” for English) serves around 1,000 students ranging from undergraduates to PhD candidates in the field of library and information sciences and it operates under the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Facing the challenge of being considered behind the times, the school recently changed to its current name from the previously old-fashioned moniker of Danmarks Biblioteksskole (Danish Library School) and introduced a complete new identity by Danish studio Make.

Sample materials of previous identity, including brochures, newspaper ads, stationery and printed matters.

A new visual identity was introduced in 2010 that captured the new brand positioning and name change. The brandmark was based on the Fibonacci sequence which is employed across the boundaries of art, science and mathematics. It was supported with a flexible visual system that incorporates imagery from the ever-expanding fields of human knowledge.
— Make project description

An interesting aspect of this visual evolution is that it correlates with the perception of the practice of library sciences: Where the cliché is an old lady with thick glasses resolving dusty books and organizing indecipherable index cards, the reality is that library organization has become an increasingly complex and technologically innovative practice. In this regard, the overly governmental and academic look of the old identity is the kind of identity an institution in the twenty-first century wants to ditch.

Although I am generally wary of golden ratio- or Fibonacci sequence-inspired logos, this new identity has enough personality to stand on its own. It has a certain confidence to it, as if this logo had been in use for the last two decades. The imagery-holder technique has been done before and this one doesn’t offer anything particularly new — the awesome rainbow foil stamp version below notwithstanding — but it does manage to convey a certain connectivity between the real and the archived world. The typography is almost invisible, not calling too much attention to itself and just doing its job of stating the name and spelling out what the name stands for. The applications are varied and simple adding to that confident look. Overall, a definite improvement.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners