Masaryk University
2017
Art director: Aleš Najbrt, Michal Nanoru
Author: Marek Pistora
Cooperation: Dušan Tománek (photo), Michael Dolejš (webdesign)
Font: Custom, Neue Haas Unica
Type: Brand
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Established in 1919, Masarykova Univerzita (Masaryk University) is the second largest and second oldest university in the Czech Republic. Located in Brno, the university is made up of nine faculties that offer a combined 1,400 fields of study to more than 36,000 students. In preparation for its 100th year anniversary in 2019, Masaryk University will begin rolling out a new identity in 2018, designed by Prague-based Studio Najbrt.
"Prague is the city of Gothic, Olomouc the Baroque city, Brno the city of functionalism. We are determined by our environment to seek beauty in simplicity and purposefulness," said Mikuláš Bek, the rector of Masaryk University in Brno, in May 2017 about Brno's architectural tradition, which makes the city world-known. Together with the brief that defined Muni as confident, attractive, truly modern institution, functionalism became the basis of our conceptualization of the new identity that will be fully launched with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the university in 2019. The interwar avant-gardes correspond not only to the university’s age, but also to the democratic values that the country’s second university today represents, as well as to its position of a younger, rather sassy sibling, who brings change the situation to a great extent relying on new technologies.
Thus, the logo is a contemporary interpretation of the inscriptions on buildings of the Brno’s luminary architect Bohuslav Fuchs, as well as the work of the designer Ladislav Sutnar or the ever-living legacy of the Bauhaus. The custom typeface Muni by Marek Pistora, which is the basis of the logo and of the entire visual style, is monospace (i.e., it preserves the same space for all letters, wide "m" or narrow "i"): the basis of coding but also a sign of a certain democratic equality and universal educational base. The form here follows function not only in the simplicity of geometric lines, the building of the identity on the typeface, and the absence of decorations (in this case a symbol) but mainly by creating a functional, truly unified system for nine faculties of the university and many levels of its structures and workplaces. The university will gradually apply individual elements of the new visual style starting March 2018. The first to receive diplomas with the new logo will be the students graduating in October next year.
