Well, not these days… But that’s not what I want to write about. By „look“ I mean well-done visual identity of the Czech Presidency. Yes, those colourful letters.
I remember the day before Mirek Topolánek and his team presented logo of the Czech Presidency to the public in November 2008. I was chatting with my colleague and I wrote to him: ”It will look like big colourful letters saying EU2009CZ.” Well, I was wrong… It looks like big colourful letters saying EU2009.CZ! So I wasn’t excited about it first.
Logo of the Czech Presidency - official presentation (© Government of the Czech Republic)
But now I like it very much. I live near the Prague Congress Centre, which became center of Czech Presidency – most conferences are held there. Every day when I go to work, I see the logo and its applications. It works very well in print, outdoor and also online.
Czech Presidency - Prague Congress Centre (Photo: Jiri Suchomel)
I like the way they are playing with the national codes and building a map from letters:
Czech Presidency - Prague Congress Centre (Photo: Jiri Suchomel)
There are also some funny examples. Motto “Europe without Barriers” on… barriers:
Czech Presidency - Prague Congress Centre (Photo: Jiri Suchomel)
Logo itself was created by Tomáš Pakosta, winner of public competition. Complete identity was then finished by professionals. According to official information, the Czech Presidency logo and the graphics manual cost CZK 300,000. Pakosta won CZK 50,000 in prize money, and the manual itself cost CZK 250,000 to produce. I think they deserve it 
Czech Presidency - merchandising (© EU2009.CZ)
It’s a complex graphic system, both aesthetical and practical. French logo may be nice, but what if it’s used in small size?
Nicolas Sarkozy in EP (© Service photo Élysée - D. Noizet)
Mirek Topolánek in EP (© Government of the Czech Republic)
And here is the upcoming Swedish Presidency:
Swedish Presidency (© se2009.eu)
Again, this logo looks quite strange to me. But I will wait for its applications before any comments. (Just one note: “EU” and “SE” are swapped. Although eu2009.se works too.)
You can compare logos of older presidencies at Wikipedia.
More about Czech logo can be found at EU2009.CZ.
(17 votes, average: 4.41 out of 5)
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Interesting and very colorful article. I enjoyed it!