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Identity System for a Moscow Hostel 'Station'

Identity System for a Moscow Hostel 'Station'

Natalia Treskova
June 29, 2016
1 Comment

The identity system was developed for a hostel situated in Moscow. The hostel is called 'Station' ('Станция' in Russian) and is dedicated to Moscow metro, which is an outstanding peace of architecture.

The hostel isn't just a place with cheap rooms, but also a meeting point for enthusiastic tourists who want to communicate with locals and each other. In the hostel you will find interesting tours around the city (including several tours about Moscow metro) and fascinating inner life with heartfelt parties and various events like sport competitions and board games.



The identity system is based on the appearance of walls in Russian metro. Moscow Metro looks like an underground palace: with tile, marble and mosaics.
The name of stations are usually written on plane plates on the tile (this is a recognisable view) - this combination has transformed into the logo and the identity system in general.
The other parts of walls (marle, mosaics, etc) can be used for illustrations for souvenir productions, posters and so on. Photos can be fully or partly put upon or under the grid.
The whole system is easy to support, and it is essential: the hostel isn't very rich to afford hiring a staff designer.


I mostly used software: Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Also I used paper, pencils and chalk - mostly for drafts throught whole process.
Firstly, I've drawn patterns for different textures in Illustrator and looked and their combinations.
Then I spent some time on choosing a typeface (Futura) and developed the principles of placing text in the identity.
After that, I used Photoshop to find out how photos can work within the identity.






The project was a part of my studying process, so I've got a broad feedback from for my teacher and my groupmates.
People usually said they liked the idea behind the project. However, there was a risk to lose the entire Moscow Metro theme and to just use neutral grids. There were several iterartions before I could find (hope so) the balance between illustrations of walls and clean grid.

Natalia Treskova

Graphic designer, based in Moscow. My interests include branding, typography and web design.

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