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KNEU

We have

Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman is the largest economic university in the country, founded in 1906.

KNEU has more than 20 thousand students, 820 professors at 6 faculties and 2 research and educational institutes.

For 114 years, the university has provided not just theoretical but real applied knowledge in the field of economics.

Variables

KNEU is the top economic university in the country, but for all its coolness loses value for the younger generation due to the following factors:

young people perceive public universities as old-school and outdated
alternative educational institutions, online platforms, interactive methods appear.

Find

Who is KNEU as a brand? What can it offer to the younger generation?

Decision

We interviewed 900 students and alumni to find out what they thought about KNEU. They confirmed that have an association with KNEU: the best state-owned economics university.

Right answer

We just took and voiced aloud what everyone thinks about the university:
KNEU is the country’s major high school of economics.

Idea

The big idea has emerged from the new positioning:

KNEU. Economics of Everything University

Because it’s all about economics. It is present in all areas of our lives, and we all live in it. And it's not just about money. All processes and relationships in society are built on the economy. Business, culture, urban planning, environmental science, all of them are about economics. KNEU has courses in all its fields and dimensions.

Visual style

The columns of the facade of the main building of the university are taken as the basis of the KNEU logotype form. The logotypes of the faculties and institutes are also formed from the silhouettes of the columns, which have a round shape but a square base.

These were the round columns on a four-square base that inspired the vision of the logo and the entire design system. We wanted the logo to be monumental so that it would reflect the long history of the University, but at the same time modern and simple.

The font inscription of the logo is based on simple geometric shapes from the architectural scheme of the main building. The logo is dynamic and has two forms: simplified, like the markings of the columns in the diagram, and elongated, like the columns themselves.

Green is a colour historically important to Kyiv: it’s about old postcards of green Kyiv, metro tokens, chestnut trees. Green is important to KNEU too: it was one of the colours of the old uniform of KNEU students and the student diploma at the university museum. Keeping their historic green colour was one of the University's wishes. So, the designer found a balance and took green as the main colour (she named it "old Kyiv colour"). The colour that is important for both Kyiv and KNEU.

6 faculties correspond to 6 columns of the main building. And each faculty (and institute) has its own "subsystem" with colours and patterns. As we see the columns above or on the plan-drawing, so the square names (base) are inscribed in the circles (actually the column).

The main sign of the University and the signs of the departments make a single structure where new departments may be added as the design system is simple and adaptive.