Goma: Born to Stand Out
Goma is a new publishing project for the Argentinean market, born with a clear mission: to stand out. So, with this as our North Star, we translated their vision of “elastic books of art and poetry” into a brand and visual identity like no other.
Goma Editora will specialize in books that have a profound relationship between words and images. Art books, multi-format books, poetry books and libros objeto are part of the initial offerings that Goma is bringing to market. Given this, the branding system was anchored on a flexible visual identity that can morph to work on a myriad of scenarios. Additionally, the editorial system was centered around the consistent use of a brand with high visual recognition, to overcome any possible changes in format, paper stock, printing techniques, etc.
Working with In-House has been a creative, profound, and highly professional process. During the initial stage of the work, the team made a great effort to thoroughly understand the project, helping me along the way to shape an editorial venture that was just starting. Communication was always smooth and open, and the result is a visual identity that not only beautifully reflects Goma's personality but also now constitutes one of the important assets of the project.
María Antonia Rodríguez
Founder and Executive Director
Process
In Spanish, the word Goma evokes elasticity. We brought that stretchy, bouncy, rubbery physical sensation into the design. Because the editorial project is multifaceted —books, events, objects, and more— we built a flexible (ha!) brand system that can shape shift without losing its uniqueness. To do it, we carefully surveyed publishing projects and readerships in Argentina.
We looked at media, venues, academia, cinema, and beyond to capture a context.
Goma is a brand designed to stick out, attracting a new generation of irreverent, adventurous readers who had been left out of what book culture had to offer. The brand’s irreverent approach to seriously crafted books, objects and events is not for everyone. Their brand is a signal for a new kind of readership. We built them a shape-shifting physical wordmark and a system of “mascotas” with infinite variations to meet their every ambition with their signature playfulness.
Results
The Goma wordmark was born using shapes that are universally recognizable as friendly, warm; something that is in direct clash with the austere, cold, academic and distant aesthetics of the publishing world. To put even more emphasis on this mischievous touch, we have made the wordmark contain a surprise: in its smallest version, “Goma” becomes an amorphous, elastic character full of double meanings: a playful figure that does not conform to a single recognizable configuration. It is similar to a modular piece or elastic creature, capable of stretching and transforming, reflecting Goma’s flexible and adaptable approach.
The colors also mark a distance from current editorial design trends in the world of poetry/ art books, and jump to what we estimate could be a trend later this decade: the use of pastel accents overlaid on top of pastel backgrounds (yes, two pastels), with specific saturated details — in the case of Goma generally in warm tones.
The entire identity is “rounded” with a proposed cover system for poetry books where the mascot figure can be infinitely permuted with the aim of transmitting not specific ideas, but states of mind: sadness, joy, playfulness; Everything is possible with the elastic play of contrasts between parts of different sizes, and the suggestion of eyes full of emotion.
