Volvo Ocean Race and Volvo Cars – Spain

From global event stewardship to national brand support

Spanning nearly a decade of continuous development, our relationship with Volvo represented a masterclass in scale, structural adaptability and systemic evolution. What began on the global stage with Volvo Ocean Race as a high-performance identity project for the world’s most grueling offshore sailing race organically matured into a trusted, long-standing corporate partnership with Volvo Cars in Greece.

By navigating both the fluid arena of international sports and the corporate framework of automotive marketing, our studio engineered a design philosophy that seamlessly harmonized global guidelines with authentic, tactile originality.

The Volvo Ocean Race required a visual universe capable of scaling across shifting international environments, digital networks and physical ports.

2011–2012 Edition (The New Splash)
Commissioned to develop the core identity, we deconstructed the pre-existing event imagery to create New Splash – Reinforced Dynamics. This concept visually translated the volatile, random forms of open-ocean water into a highly disciplined, mathematically standardized graphic ecosystem. The resulting graphic environment anchored the entire global event.

2014–2015 Edition (Cross-Media Systems)
Collaborating closely with the international brand management team, we updated the structural framework to enhance typographic clarity, maximize simplicity and enrich the cross-media experience across digital platforms and physical branding.

2017–2018 Edition (Strategic Stewardship)
We acted as design consultants to the global organizing body, ensuring the successful, seamless implementation of the identity architecture across diverse international touch points.

Volvo Cars in Greece
The structural rigour and systemic success demonstrated on the global race circuit paved the way for our localized partnership with Volvo Cars Greece. Within this domestic corporate framework, our studio was tasked with conceptualizing and executing an expansive matrix of applications designed to serve diverse national marketing, event, and communication needs.

Images: © Volvo Cars and for Volvo Ocean Race Edition 2017–18 / James Blake / Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajaí, Day 9 on board AkzoNobel. 25 March, 2018.