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M for Marina
Posted by Creative Review, 22 September 2011, 15:32 Permalink Comments (7)
Joining the ranks of 'logo as image receptacle' identities is a new scheme for Barcelona's Marina Port Vell created by Aesop, the London-based consultancy that was formed earlier this year
Marina Port Vell sits at the end of La Rambla in Barcelona's city centre making it a prime landing point for the yachts of the super rich. The Marina was bought by the Salamanca Group last July which is developing it into a superyacht marina to open next autumn.
Apparently, superyachts can remain in marinas for months at a time while their owners are busy running the world. This leads to problems in retaining crews who rapidly tire of sitting around waiting for the next sailing. Marina Port Vell has a distinct advantage as is it is situated in the centre of Barcelona, providing plenty for crews to do and thus making them much more likely to stay on board. Thus Aesop decided to focus on the attractions of the city in its visual identity rather than traidtional marina fare of waves and wildlife.
The mark is a capital M made from a square with boat shapes cut into it. Images of the city are then applied to the mark, featuring some of the city's famous landmarks as well as other specially commissioned shots of city life.
That approachis also carried through to stationery and even an umbrella which looks plain on the outside but has an image from the Sagrada Familia printed on the inside.
For reference, the old logo looked like this
Related content
Check out our story on the whole logo-as-image-receptacle trend here
Story on the Aol. rebrand here
And our post on the MTV rebrand here
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7 Comments
Some of the pieces are actually quite nice. The bags and umbrella have some nice touches, but... I think I've seen 4 launches this month that must have had the Melbourne branding on their concept moodboards.
http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles5/110615/projects/276451/1106151249291515.jpg
2011-09-23 04:42:34
Such a nice identity! Love this kind of dynamic system.
Reminds me of the brilliant re-brand for the City of Melbourne:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/City-of-Melbourne/276451
2011-09-23 09:41:42
Definitely on trend for placing images inside a shape – "Hey presto! We have a dynamic brand". You can certainly see the parallels with the Melbourne identity, although the fact that it uses the same letter doesn't help. I think the longitude and latitude references are my favourite aspect.
2011-09-23 11:07:31
There's some really nice touches like the boat-shaped cutouts and the inside of the umbrella. The execution's really nice. But I thought 'Melbourne', 'NYC' and about half a dozen other places before I saw Marina Port Vell.
Isn't it supposed to make you think 'Marina Port Vell' first and foremost? Filling a blocked-out space with heavily cropped images (which, let's face it, could be from just about anywhere) doesn't really cut it for me as a concept any more, especially where city branding is concerned; it's too cookie-cutter, too derivative.
They'd have been equally served by having an I (heart) Marina Port Vell symbol.
2011-09-23 11:29:08
Is this the concept shown as a last resort after the client chucked out everything else?
It's not that it's bad design, it's just a design of the moment... which surely is not right for something as permanent as a port. Nothing about the mark actually indicates what or where it is. Which surely is the reason why we create marks in the first place? To condense information into one, strong, distinctive mark.
You'd be better served running the logotype over an image.
Love the bags tho, which seem to have their own (and much stronger) identity.
And the umbrella is just beautiful.
I thought we'd seen the last of the crop in a block identities. Lets hope this truly is the last one as any other will just get the same critique, citing Melbourne, NYC, MTV, AOL.
2011-09-23 12:04:54
I think it looks chunky. Not elegant or refined. Natural History Museum did it better because they used the letter N (almost) in its purest form.
There's too much going on with the 'M'. Like the bags though. And as a brand it is bright and engaging.
2011-09-26 11:59:55
That umbrella is something I'd show other people. A really nice, slick piece of design which has been very well done, considering that if I were to design something to appeal to the rich and fabulous I'd panic and cover everything in gold and diamonds.
2011-09-27 09:28:40
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