About the Client: Lípa is an artist-owned and curated art collection, founded by Dutch artist Roel van der Linden based in Prague, Czech Republic. The collection gives a fresh perspective into the contemporary art scene by focusing on featuring fresh talent that hasn’t yet been recognized by other institutions. Much of the art was acquired by exchanging his own work with artists he met during the years he spent in The Netherlands, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

Lípa aims to present the collection in pop-up-like galleries, and in the future, grow into their own digital and physical spaces, creating a place to network and connect.

Our Rationale: The collection features diverse art and artists, which we wanted to celebrate by producing a modular custom logotype, together with a varied colour palette.

At the same time, we also wanted to contrast the organic nature of the hand-made art, by going with strong, geometric graphics and simple colour combinations, allowing the artwork itself to shine at times, and at others drawing attention with bold graphics and unexpected layouts.

Being in the contemporary art scene meant that we could go for something more conceptual and less conventional, which is what led to creating a fluid brand system instead of a static mark. We still kept in mind the diverse styles in the art itself, and how this brand system would tie everything together and seem coherent, and this made us rein in the craziness into a more orderly system, balancing flexibility & recognisability.

This idea of ‘controlled chaos’, balancing and contrasting two opposing ideals, is at the centre of a lot of the decisions we made.