Upa!
Escalódromo de Coimbra
FREELANCE
Designers: Sara Silva Santos & Allie Heesh
Copywriter: Andreia Luísa 
In Portuguese, upa! is the kind of word you’d use to encourage a child to get up, to urge someone to keep going or to cheer a friend through a difficult moment.
It’s also the name we gave to a new bouldering centre in the city of Coimbra. And we built an entire identity around this single word.


︎2x Shortlisted - Design (branding & naming)

CCP - Clube da Criatividade de Portugal


We gave it not only a name, but a new meaning. “Escalódromo”, a made-up word instead of “rocódromo” that made much better sense to us.
Free to use from now on by the audacious climbing community.




Welcome to upa! Sobes?
“Sobes?” was also a call to action present in many forms: stickers, social media, and the website. It means “Are you coming up?” in Portuguese, like what you’d say to a friend visiting your house when you want them to come in. But it just makes so much sense here.


We identified several qualities the identity needed to embody: challenging rigidity, creating breathing room for Coimbra’s student population, hinting at the physical act of climbing, and evoking an emotional response. Upa! is a word that encourages you to go further (Up, up, you go!). The tagline “Escalódromo de Coimbra” accompanies the name, a playful nod to one of the city’s academic traditions that immediately signals what the space is about whilst serving as a subtle homage to local heritage.







We wanted the palette to feel bright, positive and inclusive, something that immediately felt welcoming, whether in the physical space or online.





U coming up?



 
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