Alinea
What lifelong learning looks like
Alinea is Denmark’s leading publisher of both physical and digital learning materials for danish schools. To make their books stand out on the shelf and align their brand across online educational platforms, we crafted them a scalable identity built from a bespoke color font with a fresh digital experience to match.
Project
Client: Alinea
Year: 2022
Industry: Publishing
Deliverables
Bespoke Typeface
Design Guidelines
Digital Design
E-Commerce
Tomorrow's world starts with learning
Alinea is a high quality learning hub that puts knowledge into play by creating teaching concepts and creative learning universes for Danes of all ages. They engage with both children, the youth and teachers but also stakeholders and professionals across physical and digital channels. Because their playing field is wide, their brand/visual identity needs the same amount of width. To ensure coherence from A to B, the brand refresh supports the larger narrative and highlights the value that Alinea as a leading publisher contributes with.
1+1=3
The visual identity is formed by the geometric design language, though amplified to give it character. In school we learn how to combine familiar shapes such as circles, lines and dots into letters. In time, letters become words and words become sentences, making us capable of complex communication. As such we learn how something may become more than simply the sum of its parts. We learn how 1+ 1 may become 3.
One font to school them all
The ABCs of Alineas new identity is a bespoke font family. With 34 different styles/types, the font family ranges from Alinea Light through Black and Alinea Color, a color font used for display purposes. The font family is inspired by the way we learn to draw letters as kids – up to the attic for F and down to the basement for G. It’s defined by exaggerated geometry and modular construction, highlighting the underlying logic that makes up the latin writing system.
Alinea Bold
The past, present, and future walked into a bar.
It was tense.
The basics of color
The colorful identity operates within the conventional color scheme used in primary schools to systemise and divide between subjects. There’s no rules for using the colors across subjects, but it’s important to remember the traditional interpretation of blue for math, red for danish and green for science.
Made to be deconstructed
The display version of the typeface, Alinea Color, is used for creating graphics within the visual identity. As a color font, it's already incorporated with color, gradients, and texture when you type it out. It's constructed in a way that allows the letters to disassemble in order to create graphic patterns, color block motifs and illustrations. These compositions represent creativity and endless possibilities, the main ingredients of learning.
An extensive online experience
Alinea are digital front-runners when it comes to online learning, but are still maintaining their position as Denmark’s leading publisher providing schools with physical materials. Their online universe is made of numerous different experiences. It’s both a content site meant for inspiration, a learning hub and a place where teachers buy books for their pupils. To rejuvenate their digital presence across the site, we created a branded, engaging and intuitive experience for their users, whatever their intentions for visiting might be.
From subtle to splash
Being one of the biggest publishers in Denmark means an abundance of products, each with a distinct visual style. The e-commerce part of the site is where customers land with clear and specific goals for purchasing materials. For Alinea we designed an intuitive and uncomplicated experience that’s scalable from subtle to splash, but still embodies the identity and accommodates the complex user needs. To provide a clear overview of the site, we created a versatile framework as it was crucial that the design could hold any type of product, information and visuals.
Detailed text about the product cards.
Branded editorial content
‘Lær med os’ is where Alinea connects with teachers and professionals, diving into different topics on learning and education through articles and content. The editorial part of Alinea.dk used to be separate from the e-commerce platform. To smooth it out and make it more seamless, we merged the two sites, ultimately creating a resonant and branded reading experience through the use of colors, typography, and features like highlights and notes.
Jot it down
The readers of Alineas editorial content are primarily teachers and other learning professionals, who time and again are on the hunt for new ways of approaching their subjects. The content site is meant to inspire them and help them do their job passing on their knowledge to the bright eyed and bushy tailed. For this reason, we crafted and integrated functions for note taking, saving for future-use and highlighting the content for those who are logged in.
Nanna Knudsen
Senior Client Manager
Reach out to Nanna to learn more about this project or how we can help you.