The digital campaign for Lutsk's social-impact café, misto.cafe, has been honoured with a Red Dot Award 2024, one of the most prestigious international awards in design.
The Ukrainian company ideil. created the café’s logo, branding, social media design, and website, winning in the Brands & Communication Design category (Advertising subcategory).
The misto.cafe logo cleverly combines a welcoming smile from café guests, a steaming hot meal just served, and a cup of aromatic coffee. The entire visual identity was inspired by the unique forms of Lutsk itself — a walk around its streets offers endless ideas and inspiration, which Ideil then incorporated into packaging, presentations, social media, and overall branding patterns.
Through this digital campaign, misto.cafe attracted 100 co-founders in just 71 days of crowdfunding, each contributing a charitable donation of 80,000 UAH. The café opened in early September 2024, with a unique mission: 80% of its net profit will be converted into grants for city development projects. The concept was inspired by Ivano-Frankivsk's Urban Space 100, which has supported 163 community projects, contributing over 7 million UAH over the past decade.
"We entered the Red Dot competition to bring greater attention to the misto.cafe project, sharing the experience of Lutsk’s active citizens who came together to make this initiative a reality. The Red Dot Award gives us the opportunity to tell more people about Lutsk, its entrepreneurs, and the growth of civil society in Ukraine. And it’s truly special that this is the first Red Dot recognition for Lutsk,"
Ukrainian projects have won over 130 Red Dot Awards since its inception, with more than a hundred in the Brands & Communication Design category. Other Ukrainian companies that have been recognised include MacPaw, Kultura, Fedoriv Agency, Grape, Taktika Agency, and Banda Agency, among others.
About the Red Dot Award:
The Red Dot Award dates back to 1955, honors excellence in design across three categories: Product Design, Brands & Communication Design, and Design Concepts. Winning teams receive the iconic Red Dot Label — a mark of design quality — and award-winning works are displayed at the Red Dot Design Museum in Essen.