Responses by Nina Granath, creative director, Stockholm Design Lab
Background: The Nobel Prize is presented by the following prestigious organizations in Sweden and Norway: Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Norwegian Nobel Committee, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Academy. They are all united by the responsibility of long-term protection of The Nobel Prize’s position and the clear vision that Alfred Nobel formulated in his will. He wanted to reward those who have contributed to the “greatest benefit to humankind” in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, regardless of nationality. This project aimed to bring together all these organizations under one brand with one identity.
Reasoning: The Nobel Prize is a brand with a long history and it was important to find a solution connected to its heritage. We dug deep into its design history but found few elements that were valuable enough to provide as a basis for further development. The only ones turned out to be the medals, which later became our springboard for the new identity. The new tools are now based on this one source; therefore connected to each other, but also to the brand’s history.
Challenges: Fully anchoring decisions and results within this project. The process has been long and thorough from our side as well as the client. But, this brand is one of a kind, so we expected nothing less than that.
Visual influences: The Nobel Medal that was created for the first award ceremony in 1901—the wordmarks, typography, color and a fifth element all originate from this.
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