Ostrava
A reduction of a city to a symbol reproducible in 3.5 × 3.5 mm does not leave much space to avoid stereotype. In the case of the post-industrial agglomeration of a million people with the highest unemployment in the country, there was a danger that three exclamation points from Prague, one of Europe’s richest regions, would be interpreted as a ridicule of the intensity of the area with the forceful pronunciation of the lachian dialect. Especially after the inflation of punctuation in Internet discussions had become a syndrome of division of the country. As if exclamation points suddenly belonged behind fake news, distrainment and protest votes. In the year of unveiling, 11% of Ostrava citizens were satisfied with the logo. But the exclamation points enabled the studio to present the symbol drawn with chalk on the pavement, tattooed on a miner’s shoulder or as a Prague logo sprayed over by FC Baník fans. “We wanted a popular logo.” In content as well as in form. “We found it important for the logo to work independently of colour or typeface. You can write it in any way and it will still be it. And if you write anything else than Ostrava in front of it, it works, too. I write ‘I love you!!!’ and I love you in Ostrava, I love Ostrava, or I am from Ostrava. Some people disagreed, but still it happened: the logo has caught on.”
2009 Aleš Najbrt, Boris Meluš, Bohumil Vašák
Production estimated up to 14 days, the possibility of printing sizes S to XL
price 400 CZK