Project focus: Helsinki Transport Authority

One of Kokoro & Moi’s biggest projects has been its on-going identity work for the Helsinki Region Transport Authority. You can’t go anywhere in the city without seeing the studio’s work on the trams, subway cars and buses – even on the local ferries leaving from the port just outside the K&M studio
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It all began when Kokoro & Moi won a competition, run by an advertising agency that was looking for a design partner to help develop the identity. The brief was to create something that would help make the service – which moves over a million people daily – even more popular.

“From the past, we know a bunch of famous identities for public transport systems which have been based on the use of Helvetica,” says Antti Hinkula. “We didn’t want to follow that tradition and instead created an identity which is more human-centric, accessible and friendly, bold and colourful, yet still reliable.”

The rounded corners and softer typeface help achieve this, and Kokoro & Moi chose new colours for each form of transportation – 12,000 buses have been painted a new shade of blue.

The studio also worked alongside the Helsinki-based interior architecture firm Koko3 in the creation of ticket offices and kiosks for the transport authority. “Out went the rigid pictograms giving instructions to passengers as they got on to buses, trams and subway trains, and in came more humorous illustrations by fellow Finn Rami Niemi,” adds Hinkula.

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