l'Universitario
l'Universitario is a newspaper written by university students for university students. It has two printed versions and an online website. After the foundation, they asked me to redesign their visual and brand identity in order to increase their audience and become a stronger reality in Trento's cultural panorama.
The concept of the logo was already there: the Penguin. It's a social animal and it was used by rebelling students during 60s political riots in Italy. Yellow and purple are the color of Trento province, the province where the newspaper is printed: they are complementary colors and they express trust and brightness.
Typography is crucial. I chose a font for web (Source Sans Pro) and two for the printed version: Didot for headers and Source Serif Pro for paragraph text.
Illustrator has been used to create all the main assets: logo, lettering, illustrations. InDesign was used to design the newspapers layout.
The main focus of the identity is versatility: it has to be used in many different contexts, from printed paper to web. That's why I designed two logos: the Penguin, the dynamic logo, and the Lettering, the printed logo.
The Lettering is inspired by other newspapers headers, like New York Times and Post, but with a modern approach: the font is shaped by geometric shapes and straight lines. It is mainly used on newspapers but it is also used as a more institutional logo.
The Penguin is the iconic one, used on web and many different mediums, such as poster, credits, badges, business cards and illustrations.
The Illustration style used by the brand is geometric and flat for the web but, since l'Universitario is the voice of the students, on other mediums the illustration style is very different. The focus, however, is on contents: l'Universitario is made by it and build on it so it has to be a showcase and a frame for the content.
From its debut, the new identity helped l'Universitario reach a +65% of audience and the newspaper has been felt more readable and pleasurable (as shown by the number of copied that has been given away in just one year) and many official institutions and private societies asked l'Universitario to become their media partner.
It's really beautiful! I like your design :)