Info
Fereos + Associates Architects is an international studio practicing architecture in Cyprus, Greece and worldwide. The studio was established in 1978 by Harris Fereos, architect Ph.D, who, back then, had designed their first logotype, consisted of a series of rectangles growing with geometric progression and a custom typeface. That same logotype was used until today.
Nowadays, the management of the studio has passed from Mr. H. Fereos to his son, Pavlos Fereos, who understood the need for a re-defined logotype and branding. The tricky part was that the designer of the first logotype was so emotionally connected with his design that no one wanted to upset him. In addition, that logotype was a fine example of the late 70’s design style and was revealing the long history of the studio.
So, based on the few existing characters of the old logotype, we designed a full display typeface which included greek, latin characters and a complete list of glyphs. The change that the client happily accepted was the conversation of the logotype’s letters in stencil mode. The idea behind this addition was that when the time will come to update their signage it could be easily cut by CNC or Laser machines, it also made a nice reference on stencil elements architects commonly use in floor-plans.
Fereos Architects also commissioned us to work on their new web site. The main concept behind our design process was to bring together their rich history and deep knowledge upon architecture and modern technologies. Through our research on old floor-plans that they had designed in the late 70’s early 80’s, there was a very distinctive typeface used in their descriptions, she was very technical-modern at that time but nowadays, for the same reason, looks quite nostalgic. The name of the font is Simplex and she was originally designed by Dr. Allen Vincent Hershey at the Naval Weapons Laboratory.
What caught our attention is that with a closer look you will not find any curves, only straight lines linked together in order to create the illusion of a curve, fun fact this characteristic made her ideal for cutting machines!
The downside was the poorly designed Greek alphabet. But it didn’t discouraged us, we resigned the whole Greek alphabet!
At the end of the day we and the client had two fully functional typefaces in both greek and latin.
The new typeface was the first element for their website, combined with black and white images, detailed technical drawings and custom made icons the whole website turned into an interactive floor plan, combining technology and history in favour
of the users’ experience. The second element was the grid we used, which was based on the series of rectangles growing
with geometric progression that Mr. H. Fereos designed back then.
Particular importance was given in the presentation of their portfolio page. We designed three different layouts for the same page, and in combination with the multiple sizes of the thumbnails, the user perceives each page as a unique experience.
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