I was listening to NPR’s Fresh Air this Monday and the episode that I was listening to ended with a review of a movie called “22 July”.

I’ll admit that sometimes I skip the movie, book, and album reviews after the part that I want to hear of the episode is over. But the movie being reviewed made this time a little different.

This is a long overdue story that I was thinking of writing about since February actually. Showcasing your work right after you finish is a popular move among designers, at least that’s my observation. I have been thinking about doing the same but procrastinating so far, but now is the time to start. It’s not a usual “case study” though. I’ll try to avoid fancy wording and go with a story. Bear with me.

1- Learning Phase

Back in October after moving back to Turkey from New York, I sent an application for a voluntary work and was selected as Designer for an event called Volunteer Summer Summit (VSS), organized by the European Federation for Intercultural Learning (EFIL) — an organization that I have been volunteering at since 2014. I was going to create the visual identity for the 2018 VSS.

EFIL’s VSS is an annual volunteer training event that gathers around 200 people across Europe and beyond every summer; the event focuses on a different topic each year and takes place in a different country. For 2018 the topic was “Civic Education Against Extremism”, and it was going to take place on an island called Utøya in Norway.

It was going to be my first time on Utøya and I wanted to learn more about it. Even though I was aware of the terrorist attacks in Norway in 2011, I did not know that some of it was on this island. Thanks, Google.

In a nutshell; a far-right terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, committed two terror attacks in Norway in 2011. The first attack was a car bomb explosion in Oslo, Norway and he killed 8 people. The second one was shooting at young people at a summer camp on Utøya which took 69 lives.

Our first preparation meeting was planned for December and I was expected to come up with some ideas for the logo design to show at the meeting and get some feedback. It was a challenge.

I did have some ideas but was not sure about them. VSS has a few rules to follow for logo design and also leaves you some flexibility. Well…I did not go there with a draft or sketch.

Before designing anything, I wanted to see Utøya, hear the story there, and stay on the island for a couple of days. After all, the logo will be used on all communication channels and promotional materials and will stay with people for a long time. Each event has a different logo. It’s special for all the people that are involved in the event.

VSS being a long time traditional event, it has its design guidelines too. The logo needs to represent the theme of the event, the country that it’s taking place in, sunflower elements, etc…then you also don’t forget the budget constrictions (keep in mind that the organizer is an NGO and don’t have the budget for printing too many colors), and finally designer’s creativity.

2- Ideation Phase

After seeing Utøya, visiting the memorial, having discussions with the team, and hearing their ideas I started to work on ideas.

These are some of the sketches that I made at the airport while waiting for my flight.

I was just going for raw sketching to visualize the concepts that I had in my mind.

Yes. They don’t look so nice.

You are right, my hand-drawing skills are not that good.

These design concepts turned into digital visuals as soon as I arrived back to Turkey, prepared some terrible visuals, which I am not going to show here, that led me to the main concepts.

I wanted to design something that would make people curious about the place, remember their experience there when they look at it after the event was over, and keep the mood up. So I came up with the visuals below.

In order to get to Utøya, you need to take a short boat trip first. Well, it can remind you of the island but doesn’t have much to do with the theme.

While thinking about the rooms and how to use them the library was accepted as common space where people could spend their time during the breaks or in the evening. This design could remind you of the library, island, and discussions that you had in that space. Utøya also has a selection of books about education against extremism. Not too bad, except the colors.

And then we have my favorite: the island itself, which was also selected by the team I think it answers some questions and represents everything that we wanted to have.

3- What does it represent?

You don’t know where the event is taking place this year? It seems like it’s going to be on an island.

OK, but where is this island? See the big picture. The colors of the frame point out that it’s in Norway.

Let’s focus on memories as well; this will be the first thing that you’ll see when you arrive to the place where you’ll be waiting for taking a boat to the island. It’ll also probably be the last thing that you’ll see when leaving, you’ll pack up your stuff and take the boat back to the mainland and turn around to have a one last look at the island.

Before getting there you need to complete some steps; registration, getting your acceptance, workshop selection, payment, etc…The wood dock is inviting you to the island but also reminding you that you need to take some steps to get there.

No need to mention the great nature which is part of Norwegian culture.

All the great memories you’ll have, people you’ll meet with, discussions that you’ll have, everything will happen on Utøya. So we cover that too. And the island itself, through its history, covers the need for education against extremism.

4- Optimism

One last point was keeping the effect of “optimism”, before and after the event. Topics that’ll be discussed are heavy, the history of the island definitely matches the topic and people will learn a lot. There is much to talk about. I just wanted people to keep their mood up and stay optimistic when dealing with a heavy topic by using bright colors — I hope it worked for them.

If you have time and a Netflix account, go and watch the movie to learn more about July 22.