Pentagram partner Sascha Lobe rebrands a yachting company, accentuating elements of nautical navigation

“Azure oceans, sun-drenched summer days and the momentary sluice of shadows enjoyed underneath billowing palm fronds.” That’s not only what we’ve been dreaming of during this somewhat disappointing British summer, but also where the colour palette for Iltchi’s branding is plucked from. Pentagram partner Sascha Lobe helped the yacht company emanate its brand ethos and environment through various design elements.

Pentagram didn’t receive a design brief for this project so “we worked with branding strategist Kimberly Lloyd who was the first touchpoint in delivering a coherent and on-point brand strategy for Iltchi,” Lobe tells It’s Nice That.

Lobe took direct cues from nautical navigation in an interestingly harmonious design: the word mark is a bespoke sans serif grotesque font accentuated by latitude and longitude glyphs depicted in degrees, minutes and seconds. Creative direction and visual identity from branding strategist Lloyd depicts natural imagery which is distorted through the mechanics of satellites on boats: they scan the Earth and patch fragments into coherent but pixelated perspectives for navigation. Therefore, the visual identity of the brand is “underscored by pixelated photography alluding to satellites.”

Lobe was passionate that he took a holistic approach when rebranding: “Many are under the impression that creating a logo on its own will completely transform a brand, but that just isn’t the case, ever,” he tells It’s Nice That. “We look at the bigger picture and communicate the unseen as well. Every atom matters – not just the logo and visual identity.”

According to Pentagram, these concepts illustrate sea travel, “charting far-off destinations and nautical culture while de-emphasising traditional travel photography”. Whereas Iltchi’s print items bring the word mark to life through typography, colour palette and visual identity. Iltchi’s printed tabloid explores the North Sea’s Bremerhaven – a port city on Germany’s North Sea coast that lies at the co-ordinates 53°33＇00＂N, 8°34＇36＂E. It ranks amongst the top 30 busiest seaports in the North Sea and aims to be a nod to the European roots of Iltchi.

For “collateral and editorial use,” Iltchi’s modern serif typeface attempted to contrast the sans serif grotesque logo mark in an elegant way through placement that is both “bold and central,” says Pentagram. For the visual language of the yacht brand, Pentagram wanted the reality of sea travel – its stormy and turbulent weather – to come through as well as the beauty of the sea.