BOND gives LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts a living identity

‘Muotoillaanpa se toisin’ is a phrase that works double duty in Finnish. It means both ‘Let’s design it differently’ and ‘Let’s reformulate that.’ For BOND, the global brand design studio tasked with renewing the identity of LAB Muotoiluinstituutti (or LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts) in Lahti, that linguistic duality became the conceptual spine of everything that followed. LAB Muotoiluinstituutti is one of Finland’s most prestigious creative higher-education institutions, operating within LAB University of Applied Sciences. When it set out to rethink its brand, the ambition was to go beyond a surface-level refresh. The institute needed to strengthen its position in an increasingly competitive landscape, clarify its role within the broader LAB organisation, and reignite its appeal among prospective designers, artists and creative professionals both domestically and internationally. “We set out to create an identity that would inspire students while embodying the institute’s core philosophy: to reform, rethink and reshape,” explains Jesper Bange, Co-Founder & Chief Design Officer at BOND. The strategic shift that underpins the project is deceptively simple. Higher education branding tends to describe programmes, facilities and heritage. BOND chose instead to define transformation. Rather than presenting the institute as a place to study design, the positioning frames it as a launchpad for a new kind of creative professional – people who actively reshape their field, their surroundings and themselves. The question posed to prospective students: Do you want to become just another professional, or someone who reformulates the field?