A big BIC bravo to Gustavo Stecher, Founder and CEO of Menos es Más and BIC Board Member, who is adding a new award to his distinguished resume: first prize in City Branding at the Bienal Iberoamericana de Diseño (BID) in Madrid! The Ibero-American Design Biennial is held every two years at the Design Central Matadero Madrid and is one of the most prominent meeting points for design professionals and institutions from Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

Gustavo worked with his team Camila Stecher, Pamela Blanco, Lucas Rodríguez, Matías Scappaticchio, Florencia Ciccirello, Lucas Cabrera, Marcelo Mansilla to create the winning Bariloche City Branding project, which started back in 2017. The challenge was to define a new iconographic identity for the city, one of the top tourist destinations of Argentina and South America. It consisted of a large-scale collaborative work, for which the team “called on the entire community to participate and share their ideas, memories, stories and experiences.” The information collected in community-powered meetings gave rise to the conceptual basis of the entire branding and graphic identity development process including the design of over 500 graphic elements that define the city.

Since the new identity was implemented in 2019, tourist activity in the city of Bariloche has shown a notable increase, with 41 daily flights at the local airport and hotel occupancy levels with maximum peaks of 90%.

Menos es Mas was in charge of creating the new identity icons, using three axes: home, water and mountains. The fieldwork allowed the studio to recognize the differential values of Bariloche, its most representative elements, and to develop the conceptual construction of the brand. 

When asked about the project, Gustavo remarked how "developing city branding with our Community-Powered design methodology is the key to a successful and long lasting identity system for a city." 

The project also won the first prize at the City Image Awards/ UCCI (Iberoamerican Capital Cities Union) that rewards and distinguishes “good practices, those that not only employ large layers of graphic makeup, but also detect and point out, in a precise manner, the best differentiating qualities and the urban and cultural values of a city, highlighting them visually and semantically.” The project also won a mention in the Design and City Award / Madrid City Council.

In addition to being on our BIC Board, Gustavo has brought his community-powered design approach to BIC's one credit intensives Brandinghood: Parts ONE and TWO.  Last Fall, the course worked on developing brand identity for Harlem.  This course was developed through a grant by CCNY's Campus Engagement Network (CEN), an initiative funded by the Moxie Foundation which facilitates new approaches to teaching, research, and advocacy missions. Congratulations Gustavo!! We're so proud of this achievement and can't wait to see what you do next.