Russia, IVANOVO OBLAST
Gavrilov Posad
The Palatial horse plant brand
Gavrilov Posad is the small county town, standing just behind Suzdal and hiding in its gloss. This town is famous for the breeding special strong horse breed — the Vladimir heavy draft. The only thing reminding of the said days, when these horses were famous far across the whole country, is the grand building that you can't miss when going from Suzdal. It is the former palatial horse stables, home of the mighty horses. It was a dream of Igor Erikovich Kekhter to own it and revive the image of the legendary horses through the modern tourist product.

Client: Entrepreneur and the former head of Suzdal, Igor Erikovich Kekhter

Work: branding, design

2019 … 2020
In the search of the Gavrilov Posad identity
Doesn't matter, that the idea could look obvious, there always have to be discussions and meetings with residents that could've change everything. Not here, though. The horse power remained the most powerful one. Though we've learned where the widespread funny proverb came from, that is impossible to translate accordingly. It's all about the powder that had been produced here and was delivered straight to the sovereign's court.
Красавицей станет любая лохудра — поможет ей в это посадская пудра
Anyway, here's short synopsis of 4 meetings and discussions on the town identity can be summed up to these:
  • Residents

    1. Vladimir Heavy Draft horses
    2. Horseriding makes people more humane
    3. Black soil, fertility
    4. Fields are called "Ополье"
    5. Historical powder
    6. Sewing workshops
    7. Drinking
  • Administration

    1. Vladimir Heavy Draft horses
    2. Gussars
    3. Religion
    4. Historical powder
    almost the same as the residents
  • Church

    1. Archangel Gavriil
    2. Miraculous springs
    3. Upcoming pilgrimage center
  • School

    1. Gav-Paris
    2. Posad-town
    and others funny local memes that can be summaried as a mockery of europeanization
The horsepower of Gavrilov Posad
The social research brought no surprises and prooved, that palatial horse stables is the most recognizable symbols of the town and we've started work with it.
While we were going on with the real history, than we had no doubt to call it appropriately to the original. But there was something confusing with the title for the owner that we couldn't bear. We had been insisting on the Horse Plant number 49, yet the team of the owner asked for adding more premiumness. We've spent several polls that clearly demonstrated almost nothing and we both stayed at our positions, but the owner is the owner.

The Horse Plant number 49 logo
I doubt any will stay at the Horse Stable Plant no. 49 for good
Igor Kekhter
BUSINESS OWNER
The Palatial Plant
Okay, the Palatial Plant it is
The former entrance tower has a vane in shape of a horse on top of the spire. Undoubtedly such a unique piece of history shouldn't be avoided and we took the obvious chance to use the familiar horse and give it a second chance as a town symbol. We used a quadcopter and got straight to it. There's no need to reinvent. The horse silhouette raised no questions nor among the admistration, nor residents. It's just what they already used to and such conservative approach just works.

On top of Gavrilov Posad stable tower
Palatial Palace logo could be easily became a logo for the whole Gavrilov Posad town, as well
The Radcliffe font by Zetafont was a nice mighty match with the strong logo
Communication twirks
All the words starting with russian "кон" could be transponded to "конь", that makes the whole new area of familiar words sound more, say, horsey.

  1. Коньцерт
  2. Коньтекст
  3. Коньтакты
  4. Коньтроль
  5. Коньгениально!
Russian national drink museum
Igor Erikovich Kekhter, the owner of the Palatial Stable Plant was always passionate about nalewka culture and wanted to share it with others. He has published several books in which he shares his best receipts, like the one with a brilliant pun in the title. Besides, nothing can beat the gastronomical products. Thats how the personal passion and the experience transformed in the whole all-embracing russian national drink museum, which disclosed the identity of the place and attracted tourists as the only one in whole Russia. The reception, combined with a bar counter was agreed to call after the historical ordinal number of the palatial stables:
49 horses
49 horses went to a bar
And again we had a discussion that was somewhat looking like two Vladimir Heavy horses pulling in two separate ways, while standing on the same place. We adviced to touch a logo in a minimal way by adding a leaked hole to the barrel and leave it that way. Like it adds some fun to the bar. But the owner and his team hasn't been satisfied with freethinking this scale for Gavrilov Posad and to play serious. So the final logo represents the typographic part with a horse hidden somewhere in the middle. That gave us an idea to use a horse-filled type that we'll use later for the nalewka alphabet.

My barrel of pun
I doubt any will stay for a drink in a bar with a pissing horse.
Igor Kekhter
BUSINESS OWNER
Nalewka alphabet
One of the brand features of the museum is the list of nalewka based on the every letter of the pre-revolution russian alphabet.

This is taken from the old russian game originally and is unique to the museum in Gavrilov Posad only. To make the design special we agreed to punch some horsepower in every letter and make every one of them the special one, so the part of the symbolic horse became hiding in a glyph like in a shadow theater.

The stickers were made bright and gracious to be funny and unforgettable, making the tipsy game even more dizzy. The set of the alphabet bottles look recognizable and intriguing because of the color play.

There 7 colors in total and they mix alongside the bottles to match the color of the drink at least a little bit. It was the toughest part of the design, because not all the nalewka had been ready by the time of the design.

Lemon nalewka sticker
Drink and learn the ABC
Palatial Plant today
The overall personal tourist projects of this size that is driven by a single entrepreneur are often could be solved peacemeal. Series of events that started with covid restrictions, obviously, slowed down the plans. Anyway the story is going forward, with the succesful launch of gastronomical museum complex, that attracts visitors from Russia.
Feel free to come to Gavrilov Posad, have a try on the alphabet nalewka set, with in mind that they're pretty strong. Have a look at the museum, telling the story of the local culture and the Vladimir Heavy Draft horses. And if you'd be overwhelmed with impressions there's always a bed for you in hussar styled houses inside.
Igor Kekhter
BUSINESS OWNER
Left-to-right: Igor Makovsky, Natalia Rybalchenko, Igor Kekhter, Vladimir Lapter and Marina Karaseva (Head of Gavrilov Posad and his deputy)
  • Natalia Makovsky
    Concept, idea
  • Igor Makovsky
    Art direction, designer
  • Maria Koroleva
    Researcher
  • Igor Kekhter
    Thanks for support
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