MELBA
A dynamic archive of Bulgarian design
In 2017 Studio Komplekt approached us with the idea for MELBA — a dynamic archive of contemporary Bulgarian design from all creative fields.
Its mission was to put on display and support visual artists, who push their discipline through their original approach, ideas and craftsmanship.
We created a colourful visual identity that reflected one of the key aspects of MELBA — variety, which was used in all online and print communication, as well as a base for the online archive itself.
In Bulgaria, Melba is an ice cream dessert, famous for its variety of toppings. To illustrate each design category, we used a different one.
Video Portraits
To make it more personal, we wanted to not only show each artist’s bio and work, but to capture their unique character. Working with photographer Mihail Novakov, we created dynamic portraits in the form of short video loops.
The archive
From scratch, we designed and built a bilingual interactive experience, which allowed quick browsing through design disciplines and encouraged discovery of different visual artists.
Through a series of events called MELBA Live, presenting insights from recent work of local artists, we aim to continue the thread of collaboration and skill-sharing between designers from different fields of expertise.
The future in front of MELBA is bright and we’re happy to be involved in a project, which has the potential to bring the Bulgarian design community closer together.