BOND turns the ‘Archipegalo of Finland’ into a living typeface for Saaristo’s wild-hearted identity

Comprising 40,000 islands and islets, the ‘Archipegalo of Finland,’ Saaristo, is a place like no other, taking the title of ‘the most diverse archipelago in the world.’ It’s a place that needs to be seen to be believed. To attract more visitors, they reached out to BOND’s Helsinki studio to help them do just that with a visually arresting identity. “Our goal was to visually capture the feeling of being there – to ensure the identity felt true to the place, not like something imposed from the outside,” Senior Designer Kasperi Salovaara tells us. “It was all about distilling the essence of Saaristo into a visual language that felt both authentic and evocative.”

The team was free to take a more conceptual approach than typical tourism branding. Anchored by a set of guiding themes – simple and rich, thoughtful and kind, wild-hearted and true – BOND let Saaristo speak for itself.

“The entire brand is shaped by Saaristo,” Salovaara reveals. And it is. To build the logo, he tells us, “We spent countless hours exploring Google Maps, convinced that with 40,000 islands, we could find every letter of the alphabet hidden in their shapes.” They combed through the map, screenshotting and pinning potential island forms one by one that could serve as letters. For consistent detailing across each letter, each chosen island shape was first printed, then hand-traced before being scanned and meticulously redrawn in Illustrator.

All this led to the finished design, which was sculpted directly from the outlines of eight real islands within the archipelago; it’s a fitting homage to the region. “A humorous twist during the process saw one island ‘go missing,’” Salovaara adds, “prompting a two-day search across maps until the team rediscovered it – a testament to the archipelago’s vast scale.”

While the lettering and logo took satellites and meticulous patience to create, the art direction – with imagery created with the help of Finnish creative production company Duotone (Juho Huttunen for stills and Sam Gladstone for film) – took a more intensive approach with a two-day shoot on an island to explore and define the visual style for portraying Saaristo.

“By late October, daylight was scarce – just six hours per day – and the weather shifted every five minutes, creating an intense but inspiring environment. We captured whatever felt visually compelling and spent time in silence, simply absorbing the place.” A key discovery was that Saaristo’s unique island shapes are present everywhere, emphasising their significance in the visual identity. “Ultimately, Saaristo itself shaped the art direction – we just had to observe, listen, and let it guide us.”

Among the boundless research BOND carried out, they found inspiration in “maritime charts, archipelago signage, and historical texts – like the engravings found on stones.” The identity’s typographic duo of 205TF’s Muoto and ECAL Typefaces’ Kolonia reflects this heritage. “Muoto added a sense of precision and legibility to complement the raw quality of the logo when written out beside it. Kolonia helped define the brand’s tone across different contexts, ensuring a cohesive typographic system.”

Old maps of the region influenced the layouts as well. “When marking larger sea routes or areas, the text would naturally follow the path of the route.” This sparked the idea of incorporating that dynamic, flowing alignment into the text arrangements.

To highlight the ‘must-do’ signature experiences in Saaristo, from sailing and sea-swimming to sauna, BOND created a series of sub-brands, each unique logo drawn from scratch, capturing the activity itself and the feeling it evokes. “This approach enriched the overall visual identity, adding a sense of playfulness and spontaneity,” notes Salovaara, “After all, Saaristo isn’t just serene and picturesque – it can be fun and quirky too.”