Nord Design was an initiative by a major Russian industry-forming enterprise, which was working through the idea of a platform to unite architects, city administrations and business to develop modern architecture in provincial cities and set up a dialogue between them — a broad social task. Wave built the brand platform, mapping each segment’s interests and finding the insights and overlaps between them. The core segment was young architects, who faced a dilemma: a strong education and the ability to do complex, interesting projects, but no such projects in small or provincial cities, which pushed them to leave. Administrations, without architectural training or much exposure to good architecture, often didn’t understand it. Wave’s answer was a single space where these sides could talk as equals and explain their tasks and problems, so their interaction would produce strong architectural projects in provincial cities and architects wouldn’t have to leave to realize their ambitions. The visual metaphor was the intersection of coordinate axes — one for architects, one for the administration, one for business — meeting at a point that starts a whole new space: a coordinate grid where users create new worlds and ideas by hand. Wave delivered a lot of merch and motion. The client liked the identity and it met their goals, though the platform itself wasn’t realized.
