Team

This year, LINII celebrated its 12th anniversary. According to Chinese traditions, we celebrate not only the results, but also the beginning of a new life cycle, recording our achievements in the first showreel.

The annual trip, which brought together employees from 11 countries in the mountains of Armenia, had a different atmosphere from previous "beach" meetings and united the team even more.

Hello, we are looking for talents!

LINII has a full-time HR lead - Lera Lyakutkina, who worked at the agency for 3 years as a project manager and knows all the processes from the inside. We launched a cozy podcast with interviews with the team called "Teplitsa" (Greenhouse).

The retail department has been strengthened: creative director for retail design Daria Veseneva and head of retail projects Dmitry Novikov have joined us.

On the eve of the New Year, the company's management held a strategic session in Tbilisi, discussing the agency's development plan for the next year.

New landmark projects

2024 was generous in terms of large projects. We rebranded the Talatu paint and varnish plant, developed the design of the Ohtek sub-brand, repackaged Tasty Coffee and the Lovemark coffee shop, and created Magnit Market brand. We developed an identity and retail concept for the federal chain of bookstores Chitai-gorod and designed the Lansoft (Lanit) brand.

Working with leading companies, we also rebranded Eskhata Bank in Tajikistan, Makro Local retailer in Uzbekistan, and the largest electronics and home appliances chain Bomba in Moldova. We didn't forget about social branding either, having developed the brand of the X5 Group Foundation "Vyruchayem" (We help out) and the identity of the educational project "Women's Health Week" from the pharmaceutical giant "Gedeon Richter".

Growing and expanding expertise

We have allocated the service of developing names into a separate sub-brand and created a special landing page on naming.

We have completed a global study of archetypes in design and retail design, actively applying the results in projects. Each of the 12 archetypes was analyzed in detail: we analyzed typography, graphics, photo style, color palette, types of retail spaces and lighting.

We dedicated a year to education in the field of experiential retail, classifying non-standard store formats by goals, assortment, location, characteristics of the target audience and customer experience.

We visited the largest furniture exhibition Salone del mobile.Milano, collected new retail trends at EuroCIS 2024 in Dusseldorf and drew inspiration from the OFFF design festival in Barcelona.

We launched a series of exclusive interviews with world design stars, including the master of orientation systems Andreas Uebele and the former Vice President of Coca-Cola for global design James Sommerville.

Tours and networking

We traditionally spoke at PIR EXPO and Design Prosmotr. From the new experience, we note a 3-day speakership in Almaty at Central Asia Fashion. It was tough, but very interesting and exciting. At the same time, we visited the Erken Kagarov City School of Design.

Creative Director Tema Semenov, together with Art Director Anya Pazyuk and in collaboration with the DSNERS platform, held an open online lecture on design trends, and Mikhail Gubergrits gave an interactive lecture in the constructor format at DConf.

Creative Director Yulia Plotnik held a 3-month advanced course on graphic design at the BHSHD. They opened the walls of their cozy office to their colleagues in the industry, and they themselves went with guest lectures.

Festivals

As for awards, the year was fruitful for LINII. As per tradition, they distinguished themselves in retail: gold for the Lassie project in the Shop Design nomination from the Russian Retail Week; gold and bronze for Chitai-Gorod in the Retail Branding nominations, silver for Lassie in Shop Design and bronze for Makro local in shop design at the POPAI competition.

In the creative field, our case for Tasty Coffee collected Silver and Bronze of the "SREDA" for typography, bronze for packaging at Red Apple and was shortlisted for G8 and ADCR.

Nice little things

This year we released a lot of cool merch, including T-shirts and keychains from the LINII Tour|2024 series, cute 3D stickers and stylish New Year calendars.

In honor of this, we wrote several articles about naming and launched our own podcast Em Dash, in which the first season was devoted to working with words.

The podcast host and LINII naming director Elena Ilyina met Svetlana Maybrodskaya, Ira Zvereva, Mikhail Gubergrits, Anastasia Makharadze and Tatyana Yanysheva from Vkusvill and other professionals in the field of verbal communication.

The agency has undergone structural changes.

Now LINII has four business partners: Dmitry Burenko, Taisiya Denisova and Tatyana Logvinova. Taya became executive director, Yulia Plotnikova and Tema Semenov became creative directors. The expanded management team went to Tbilisi to hold a strategic session. Colleagues flew in from Amsterdam, Valencia, Moscow and Sochi, and some had already been on site for a long time. It was decided to make this format annual.

To celebrate the 11th anniversary of LINII, the team flew to Turkey and, according to tradition, spent several unforgettable days in full force.

LINII's retail expertise continued to strengthen and expand.

Katya Kolotilova became creative director for retail design, leading architect Marina Kharisova and retail designer Ksenia Sapozhkova joined the team.

At the beginning of the year, we launched the hard discounter project B1 First Choice and then opened the magic children's clothing store Lassie in the Central House of Children's Stores.

We continued to upgrade the agency’s expertise in CJM. We took bronze from POPAI Russia for the rebranding of Vkusvill and were shortlisted for Big Fish from Sostav with the case Lots of Salmon.

We expanded our own knowledge in retail by launching a special project, in which we interviewed our colleagues in the shop on the topic of visual merchandising, marketplaces and e-comm, warehouse design and kitchen space planning.

Together with Strategy Director Polina Vasilyeva, we conducted extensive research on the archetypes of retail brands.

We conducted a joint interview with Technopark Marketing Director Marina Filippova, in which we talked about positioning, archetypes and the concept of a new premium.

We increased the share of projects with brand and communication strategies in our portfolio.

In 2023, we visited Uzbekistan, Armenia and Moldova on business trips. The geography of LINII clients extends beyond the borders of the country, and we are open to this, as we love traveling and new countries.

The plans for 2024 are to collectively improve the level of English. 

We began to pay more attention to educational activities: we held an inspiration session for MTS, where we talked about trends in retail, as well as an online workshop for Vkusvill on the topic Tone of Voice.

In addition to the traditional educational tours together with the Roasters’ Village, collaboration with Valentina Moksunova on the design of the international conilon brewing championship – Conilon Challenge.

We started using AI to design cases and the projects themselves

We were so fascinated by the topic of podcasts that, in addition to producing our own, we began to attend guest appearances: Mikhail Gubergrits spoke with AdIndex about how to properly build stores, and with the WORKSHOP – about how to turn from a designer into an entrepreneur. Traditionally, in May, the CEO of LINII spoke at Design Prosmotr on the topic of financial planning for designers and agency owners.

LINII Development Director Dmitry Burenko, in collaboration with Pavel Boev, wrote a children's science fiction book Wild Cities, which will be interesting to read for both adults and children.

Under the guidance of our sorceresses in working with spaces – Katya Kolotilova and Marina Kharisova – the LINII office on Pokrovsky Boulevard turned into cozy apartments in the French style and became open to guests.

We ended the calendar year powerfully with a large-scale rebranding of M.Video.

We worked on the logo, which has not changed since 1994, formulated the positioning for the first time and developed a dynamic modern identity.

We are 10 years old. Despite all the geopolitical difficulties, the team reached Sri Lanka and celebrated the anniversary. Everyone lived in a villa, practiced yoga and meditation at dawn, went on safaris and temples, surfed in the ocean, tasted exotic fruits, shared goals and innermost desires, and also planned the development of the agency in the coming years.

At the beginning of the year, we were inspired by new technologies and ideas at Expo 2020 in Dubai. Together with Hummingbird Coffee, they held a Roasters' Village in winter Sakhalin and sunny Brazil. Proved our expertise in the international markets in Armenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania during business trips.

We began to go beyond traditional branding and tried on the roles of business consultants, partners and co-organizers.

A strong strategist with an international background came to us - Polina Vasilyeva. Together with Inessa Genkina, they formed a strategic department and carried out several major projects.

The New Business Department was strengthened by the addition of Christina Andranaki to the team. We stopped participating in free creative pitches and openly express our position.

The company is becoming truly international: we have representatives in many countries. We will not hide that all 12 months were not easy in terms of mood and stress resistance. In response to the current situation in the agency, the idea was born to create weekly issues of the electronic wall newspaper titled Listok. This periodical is only for employees and is being produced inhouse.

A couple of months later, Bookvoed took gold in the Shop Design nomination, as well as silver in the “Customer experience / Project of the year” in the Retail Week Awards industry competition.

Throughout the year, we continued to work with large retailers VkusVill and X5 Group and released large-scale ecosystems for them.

The strategic department proved itself on large projects. The former Finnish paint factory Teknos, currently Talatu, has undergone a rebranding. At the strategy development stage, we did a brand audit, interviewed the team, and analyzed not only the global, but also the Russian market. In a very short time, several positioning hypotheses were developed.

A large and complex project to develop positioning, a brand platform and a communication strategy for the premium network retailer Technopark also got into the LINII client list.

Cooperation with Bomba the Moldovan electronics retailer is in full swing. During this year, together with the researchers, an analysis was carried out on the segmentation of the target audience, a number of in-depth interviews, as well as a large strategic workshop on the study of benchmarks.

We launched the Mnogo Lososya chain, which is actively opening in X5 Group stores. The task for LINII was to develop a retail concept for formats of different sizes and functionality. The point on Leninsky Prospekt in Perekrestok has already opened in a completely new design, and our teams celebrated this event with a joint dinner and discussion of the case, which is planned for release in 2023.

We became real coffee lovers: we organized the Roasters’ Village in partnership, spoke at PIR Coffee and other industry events, wrote articles for the Coffee and Tea Russian magazine.

After winning the POPAI Russia Awards and the Russian Retail Week Awards, Bookvoed returned to us to develop additional 3D visualizations for the previously developed retail concept of store space design.

This year we have resumed cooperation with Chitai-Gorod. In the development process, retail and several tasks, which we cannot disclose yet.

We completed the rebranding of XFIT fitness clubs. In addition to the development of a successor logo, indoor and outdoor media were developed that correspond to the premium and architecture of the network's sub-brands.

As we enter 2023, we are dreaming of world peace and even more cool retail projects.

We have doubled in terms of the number and scale of completed projects, revenue and team members. In 12 months, the staff increased from 15 to 25 people. Strong players came to us: art director Sergey Yurkevich and new business manager Tatyana Logvinova. Art director Yulia Plotnik returned to the «family», the management team became stronger, and LINII celebrated its 9th birthday at Anapa seaside.

2021 is marked by a trio of high-profile projects. The first project is X5 Retail Group ecosystem rebranding, which was renamed X5 Group.

The year-long project of M.Video corporate identity systematization has been completed: the detailed guides for all occasions were securely recorded in 11 volumes.

With Magnit brand, we worked on superstore formats, turning a trip to the grocery store into a whole trip: we launched a «chemical» Magnit in Tyumen, and a «navy» one in Novorossiysk.

We created a new sightseeing in the Northern capital — the 3-story Bookvoed flagship store on Nevsky prospect.

This year was rich in «delicious» HoReCa cases: we continued to cooperate with Dodo Brands and launched Doner 42. Modernized «Tashir Pizza». We came up with a name and made a brand for KFC delivery service — «Pryamikom». We developed a naming and identity for the Jargon grill cafe chain and for the Crisper street food restaurant, as well as a brand for Flour & Apron cafe-bakery in Yoshkar-Ola.

LINII knows a lot about wine. We turned the Derbent Wine Company into Derbent Wine, and also developed the corporate identity guides for SimpleWine.

Of course, we are very fond of and know how to work with the Retail and HoReCa segments, but we have also completed several online brand projects. For the ITOGO marketplace from Lanit, the largest Russian IT group, we developed naming and identity. And for the new financial service for OKB we developed the new name — Credistoriya — and made the corporate identity of the brand.

At the beginning of the year, we developed a strategy for a large chain of specialty coffee houses - Double Bee.

But the main event is the relaunch of the Dodo Pizza China concept in Hangzhou with our design and illustrations by Chinese artist Hao Hao. The project caused a great response and is still one of our "visiting cards" in the HoReCa segment.

Also at the beginning of 2020, we started working with a large Russian wine producer Phanagoria. After the first successful cooperation, the development of a series of labels for single-varietal juices, we are invited to participate in the creation of a new project from Phanagoria - champagne and a premium brand of champagne.

As part of a gigantic project, we rebranded the company itself, as well as the RGS Bank and Rosgosstrakh Zhizn brands, developed the corporate identity for the company's 100th anniversary in 2021, and branded the new service vertical.

In autumn, cooperation with Dodo Pizza continued with the development of the Doner 42 brand identity, which was launched in November 2020.

Also at the end of September, we won the Retail Branding nomination at the POPAI Retail Awards. We have gold for the development of the Bookvoed bookstore brand and bronze for Dodo Pizza China.

As for the team, in 2020 we switched to remote work, but at the same time we grew in number. LINII became five more people in a year.

In 2019, we started a large project to develop the architecture of the Shokoladnitsa Group of Companies. The result is a portfolio of brands approved at the highest level, as well as the development of a completely new brand in the Grab & Go segment: Shoko Coffee.

In March, LINII moved to an office on Pokrovsky Boulevard, where lectures can be held. We marked the move with a shock series of creative breakfasts and dinners with star speakers, like Erken Kagarov, Svetlana Maybrodskaya, the SHUKA agency, Vlad Ermolaev and many others.

During the spring-summer, we collected absolutely all the gold awards of Russian festivals and competitions in retail sphere. At the Russian Retail Week, our project for Eldorado received gold in the Best Store of the Year nomination, and at the POPAI Retail Awards we took gold for Wabi Sabi in Retail Branding nomination. There was also gold in «Best Store of the Year» nomination for the project of Dr. Head flagship store.

In autumn, a long-term cooperation with Dodo Pizza company begins. The first project is the rebranding of Dodo Pizza China. In September, our retail team goes on a study trip to China (Shanghai and Hangzhou) to explore the HoReCa market. The project is so huge that we will finish it only at the beginning of next year.

Also in August 2020, we will complete the rebranding of the Bookvoed, St. Petersburg bookstore chain. At the end of the year, the project will become one of the most notable events in Russian branding and will take second place in the «Best Projects of the Year» rating according to Sostav.ru.

At the same competition, another of our projects is the development of Zuckerstuck brand of Viennese coffee houses.

Our team is getting stronger. Dmitry Burenko (formerly Managing Director of BBDO Branding and BBDO Moscow, Development Director of WWF Russia and iSpring) comes to the position of Development Director.

At the end of the year, we will announce a new corporate identity for the Prime Star chain. We are also working on other important projects: we are developing a strategy for one of the leading Russian IT companies, SKB Kontur, and developing a corporate identity for Okko online and offline cinemas. We are working on the strategy and identity of a major player in the iSpring online learning market. We are developing a corporate identity for the re:Store brand (Inventive Retail Group) and corporate merch for MKB bank employees.

The studio started the year with a successfully rebranded Coffee House, an iconic Moscow chain during a month and a half. On March the first cafe in the new design was opened in Polyanka.

In the summer, the first Wabi Sabi restaurant rebranded by LINII was opened. The project was remembered for its bright collaboration with contemporary artist Dmitry Kavka, who developed a series of posters on a Japanese theme.

LINII filmed a short film dedicated to 1930-1935. in design. In July 2018, it was released on a wide screen; the premiere took place at the Oktyabr cinema in the presence of 1,500 people.

We moved to an office on Petrovsky Boulevard. As of September 2018, the agency has 30 people.

The largest and most notable project of 2018 is the full-scale rebranding of Eldorado, which we carried out jointly with the DDB advertising agency and the architectural studio Frishmann.

Art director Igor Mustaev joins the agency. This year we are developing strategy for ourselves, changing a lot of things inside. The second rebranding for the Prime Star chain turns out to be even more successful than the first, in terms of results. It becomes the third best project in Russia according to Sostav.ru annual rating.

We also completed a large-scale and significant project — the development of He has 34 brand in the premium segment.

At the end of the year, BQB, a well-known agency specializing in packaging design, joins LINII Group.

There are already 20 people in the studio. The rebranding of the SimpleWine vinoteque by LINII became the second one in Russia according to Sostav.

We decided to focus on branding in retail and HoReCa. Main projects: development of the Home Market brand in the economy segment, as well as the Solovei hairdressing chain.

Developed the names Kids Rock and Moonfish among other naming projects.

We made four branding projects for the territories of the Moscow region: Klin, Odintsovo, Ruza and Dzerzhinsky.

Won the first international prize: Pentawards Silver in London (for the development of a packaging series for Prime Star). We entered the premium segment. We carried out large-scale rebranding of the Winline bookmaker and the coolest in the CIS Casino Opera in Minsk.

Katya Kolotilova joined the team, who still manages the retail brand development department.

We are becoming LINII Group: in addition to LINII studio, the Group includes LEXICA naming agency and Brandkey agency.

We started a long-term cooperation with Prime Star.

We won two important tenders, one of which is international. We developed names for the Russian retailer Street Beat and Essentika the Bulgarian cosmetics brand. Street Beat was launched at the end of the year.

We began to actively grow towards large retail projects.

At the end of the year, the Murmansk brand was developed, which is currently the most awarded territory branding project in Russia.

The studio focused on projects in the field of retail branding and territory branding.

They won the first Grand Prix at the international festival OPEN Fest in Minsk for the development of a brand for Kirovograd, and also took part among the four agencies from Russia in the FIFA tender.

We developed a brand for the Bulgarian city of Troyan. We did a major project for Dochki-Synochki.

During the year, about 22 naming projects were released, including baby food brands Peekabo and Sami S Usami.

Svetlana Turkina and Sergey Lavrinenko joined the team. We moved to the office on Tretyakovskaya, there are eight people in the studio.

On July 1, 2012, a design studio called LINII was opened on the basis of the LEXICA branding naming agency. Its founders were Mikhail Gubergrits and Andrey Ionochkin.

The first two projects, Verba Mayr and Know-How from Beeline, still exist in the form in which we developed them, including naming. The first office appeared on Baumanskaya, with a staff of five people.