HardCase Design is the name of Dmitri Lavrow’s Berlin based office. Many know his creations. For example, the corporate design of the Federal Government of Germany and the visual identity of the city of Hanover. The logo of the german Mining, Chemical and Energy Industries Union is also among them. Anyone travelling to Moscow in an express train will discover his exclusive typeface for the Russian Railways.
Dmitri Lavrow studied mathematics with a major in topology at the university of his hometown St. Petersburg. It was not least his knowledge of the mathematical properties of smooth curves that gave him access to Cyrillic and Latin typography even before he graduated in 1985.
Dmitri Lavrow founded the HardCase Design office in Düsseldorf in 1994. Here he designed the Cyrillic version of the well-known Univers type family by Swiss typographer Adrian Frutiger on assignment from the renowned Linotype foundry.
In the following years, Dmitri Lavrow developed numerous visual identity programmes, for example for the city of Hanover and the Mining, Chemical and Energy Industries Union (IG BCE).
Back in 2001, he opened his Berlin office, with which he was instrumental in redeveloping the brand and visual identity of the German Federal Government. This was succeeded by outstanding corporate design concepts for the Federal State of Hesse, Germany, and the city of Rome.
The radical design of the multi-script typeface system for the Russian Railway corporation (RŽD) attracted the attention of the professional media in 2008.
Since 2006, Dmitri Lavrow has increasingly addressed design issues in spatial contexts - architectural and scenographic. A number of graphic solutions for popular science and socio-political exhibitions were created.
The wayfinding system and generative ornamental structures for the new administration building of Stadtwerke Essen (the public utilities operator in Essen, Germany), realized in 2013, mark a further step towards the in-depth integration of graphic design into the architectural form. The project was awarded the Red Dot Design Award and nominated for the German Design Award.
HardCase Design's more recent projects - such as the outdoor visitor wayfinding system for the district around the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin, or the integral navigation concept for the new administration and production campus of the Wilo company in Dortmund, Germany - are characterised by greater scale and high functional complexity of the built and public space.
The office is a cross-disciplinary entity defined by the personal signature of its founder. Dmitri Lavrow's work is focused on the translation of complex, multi-layered content into systematically precise and æsthetically exciting form.
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Awards
1998
: Annual European Design Award
: German Form Design Award
: 100 Best Posters (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
1999
: German Corporate Design Award, Berliner T(y)pe, shortlist
2001
: Type Directors Club New York
: 100 Best Posters
2004
: Type Directors Club New York
: 100 Best Posters
: Hong Kong Heritage Museum Triennial
2005
: Type Directors Club Tokyo
2007
: Type Directors Club New York
: Art Directors Club Russia
2013
: Red Dot Design Award
: German Design Award, nominee
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www.hardcase.de
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