Hotel Continental – where refuge seeking Ukrainian artists and Berliners meet, exchange, and work together.

We are happy to support and be part of such a great project: our corporate design for Hotel Continental. Located in a former piano factory in Berlin Treptow, »Hotel Continental – Art Space in Exile« is a project by Ogalala Kreuzberg, an independent theatre collective in Berlin. The project was brought to life, to support refuge seeking artists in Berlin by giving them access to education and work. The grand opening in June was a big success and since then, several art festivals took place.

The background story was our foundation when creating the visual appearance: Not much is left of the original »Hotel Continental« in Mariupol but memories. Back in may 2021, the »Center of Contemporary Art« was the venue of a theatre collaboration and therefore a strong symbol for creating the »Art Space in Exile« in Berlin. The logo is directly inspired by the memorable facade of the original building. We created a supersign by extracting the letter „H“ from the architecture – our attempt to keep the memories alive.

The layout principle works like the project itself: A color reduced black/white design with a frame, symbolising the blank canvas or stage that »Hotel Continental« is for the artists. Their art – represented by the images and text content – brings the design to life. We loved working with the team and creating such a playful and flexible corporate design system that does not only adapt to the different touch points but is an easy to use stage for the wide variety of current and future content as well.