KhombiSA

Slogan Co-creation & Logo Design

Client Challenge: To co-create a slogan and icon for the German Embassy’s Combi with an unexpected South African approach that doesn’t isolate the youth but instead intrigues them. The German Information Centre revamped an ‘old school’ VW bus which travels to different parts of South Africa to promote the German language, culture and values in a fun, friendly, modern and interesting way. The bus has a cool, funky, design inspired by the colours of the German flag (red, black and yellow). It has a sitting area in the bus to enable small scale discussions as well as speakers and a sound system in the interior. The team were looking for a logo and a slogan/catch phrase that will fit the character and feel of the bus and make people curious about finding out more about the bus.

Our Solution: After exploring different name ideas for the combi project, the client settled on Khombisa, from the isiZulu word show, which perfectly allowed us to play with the concepts of Khombi- representing the iconic and much-loved German vehicle, and -SA for South Africa.

• Illustration
• Logo design
• Emblem

Dave’s approach

Keeping the youthful audience in mind that the client wanted to appeal to, I wanted to bring the three strong colours of the German flag out into a current line-drawn icon and font to catch their attention as the combi moved around locations. I wrapped the combi in the colours of the flag giving it a modern retro twist – and I coloured in the SA part of the bold typography in green to bring through the rooted South African location of the project and to play on the double entendre of KhombiSA. It was a fun project to be a part of.

Khombisa at the German Beer fest