LOGO AND BRAND IDENTITY FOR FIIT

FIIT – Fundamental Informatics and Information Technologies – is a new educational programme based at the Ural Federal University. It was launched in 2019 by Kontur with the support of Naumen, JetStyle and other representatives of the IT industry in Yekaterinburg.

The main goal of FIIT at UrFU is to train software developers in a new way. And our task was to come up with how FIIT would look like – we created a logo and brand identity.

To make it easier for the client to use the new brand guidelines, we made them interactive.

Globally, the goal of FIIT at UrFU is to make sure that talented students from our region don't leave after school graduation. This means offering them a programme that will be competitive in their eyes.

Conceptually, studying at FIIT at UrFU differs from other courses – the programme has been redesigned to show in practice why it is necessary to study everything that is taught at the university. The principle is that each course must answer the question of why a future developer needs it — this is the basis, around which everything is built.

The main idea is to teach the compulsory modules in the first two years, and in the third and fourth years to work with individual student learning plans, as close as possible to practice. And to form a community of students and applicants around FIIT at the Ural Federal University.

But apart from upgrading the educational process, it is also important to be able to package and deliver this information to students and applicants. To find its visual language, its history, its vision, and display it to the outside world.

So, after talking to the FIIT team, we brainstormed different ideas and settled on a concept with a coat of arms (emblem). Since we are talking about the formation of a new student community, heraldry is what we needed.

The emblem is a quarterly divided French shield. The shield has four letters with three symbols at their base:
F (Ф) — like an Ouroboros — has many meanings, but the most common interpretation describes it as a representation of eternity and infinity, in particular – the cyclical nature of life: the alternation of creation and destruction, life and death, constant reincarnation and death;
I (И) — like lightning — a sign of the beginning of a revolutionary storm, the lightning that illuminates the darkness. It also becomes a symbol of the struggle between light and darkness, a symbol of revolutionary thought;
T — like Chief-Pale, or Tau cross, or Saint Anthony's cross. Chief-Pale is a highly respected method used by programmers and others. The cross was named after the "Father of Christian monasticism", Anthony the Great, who lived in the 4th century. It is considered a life-protecting symbol of good luck.

We thought it was a good idea for those who are going to change the approach to education.

We used the idea of a coat of arms for the main logo, an independent emblem-container element for the brand identity, and its short form.

We have also developed a pattern generator for the interactive brand guidelines — on the website you can generate a relevant image with the main symbol, an emblem-container, or a short form and immediately download and use it, without any help of designers.

The brand identity we came up with is now used in the visual communication of FIIT at UrFU – on social media, in messengers, in the design of events and presentations, training manuals, and handouts.

And, of course, it is used for merchandise. The branded merch that has already been launched includes:
belt bags for schoolchildren for the new season of school Olympiads, T-shirts for teachers and students.
And based on the brand logo, options for the design of chats on individual subjects appear.