Ahoy is more than a greeting
It further means: "watch out!". "Things burn!". "Pay attention!" .
And attention is the key ingredient for communication. AHOY is a group of design studios in New York, Zurich and Berlin, hatched in 2000 by Connie Koch and Aline Ozkan, German/American and French/Turkish designers and friends with a mutually rewarding passion for design in every form of media.
AHOY specializes in communication with a pleasant wake up call for everyone and everything seeking to make the world a nicer place. We believe that great design needs a great cause, just as any great cause needs great design.
Design, international
Sixteen years in practice, AHOY has achieved an international reputation for developing award-winning design concepts for clients with an exceptionally high standard of design sophistication. They include festivals, award shows, publishing houses, theatres and galleries, cultural organizations as well as foundations and internationally operating governmental institutions, such as the United Nations, Goethe-Insitut, Japan Society, the Austrian Cultural Forum, the U.S. Consulates of Germany and Switzerland, Bloomberg Philanthropies, PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, Intertextile Shanghai, the AICP Show and Next Awards, the Global Fund to fight Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, and the World Health Organization.
Free range media under one roof
Technology has revolutionized communication, and the marketing of messages for physical matter and interactive channels has changed drastically in only a few years. This new reality requires a fresh, multidimensional approach to design that gets your attention no matter where you 'are' – in physical space, or online.
AHOY bridges experience in conceptual design in media of any age – from identity to advertising, from print design to interactive design, from environmental projects to animation. We understand the power of consistency across different platforms, and develop our design solutions with the big picture in mind.
A carefully selected network of collaborators, ranging from printers to writers, photographers, illustrators, animators and web developers, ensure that we deliver what we envision, no matter the size of the project. But what counts most is the intention and the idea behind it, and our mission is to bring that essence across in a way that is loved, acted upon, and remembered.
Awards
AHOY received awards for designs in many different media: In 2016, our winning entry at Print Regional Design Annual was the art publication 'Art for Rollins' published in 2015 by the Rollins College of Art, FL. In 2015, our branding and design work for the Vilcek Prizes for Design and Science was selected as a winner in the 2015 Print Regional Design Annual. In 2014, our hardcover book ‘AHOY’ was selected as one of the ‘Top Five Swiss Style Graphic Designs’ by HOW Magazine. In 2012, our catalogue for the Bienniale at the Decordova Sculpture Park and Museum received a Design Award from Graphic Design USA; so did our benefit invitation for the Public Art Fund. A third of the same kind we much enjoyed receiving in 2011 for our VIP invitation for PULSE Contemporary Art Fair. Our book cover for Loretta Napoleoni’s ‘Rogue Economics’ was nominated in the category of excellent cover design for the Book Design Review as featured in the New York Times in December 2008. Our print advertising campaigns for Swisspeaks and Wolf-Gordon wallcoverings were honored ‘Best of US Print Ads’ in the US AD Review in 2005 and 2004. Our first self-published book “2/15 - the day the world said NO to war” was honored ‘Best of International Design’ in Grafik Magazine (UK) in 2004 and became part of ‘Design by Dissent’, a book and traveling exhibition by Milton Glaser in 2006. A shopping bag designed for the Swisspeaks Festival found its way into the ‘Best Packaging’ chapter in Graphis Design Annual 2003. Our broadcast design project for ‘24FrameNews’ – a news show on independent film by the Sundance Channel – won a ‘BDA Gold’ for Best News Open in 2001. And last, our website created for Face Design (in fact our first website ever) was awarded ‘Best Interactive Design’ in Print Magazine in 2000.’
Reviews
Reviews of AHOY’s work were published in Abitare, Adbusters, Brandweek and Creativity, Branding USA by Graphis, Elle, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Geo, Grafik Magazine, Graphis Design Annual 2005, Greenpeace Magazine, GQ, Hochparterre, How Design, Io Donna, Neue Züricher Zeitung, The New York Times, Page Online, Printcritic and Print magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Type and Eye, Vogue (Italy) and Wired. Radio and TV Interviews aired on several programs including “Arts and Minds” on Bravo TV, “Against the Grain” on KPFA, and “10 vor 10” on Swiss Television (SF DRS).
Recent review by Creativepool
Recent interview by Page Online
Clients
Affordable Art Fair
Advertising Week AICP Show & Next Awards American Museum of Natural History Anderson Architects Area Basel Architekturbüro Deutschland Artadia Artport Arttable Austrian Cultural Forum Bloomberg Philanthropies City of Zurich Consulate General of Switzerland Consulate General of Germany Cooke Center for Learning & Development Decordova Sculpture Park DKNY Elizabeth Dee Gallery Environmental Defense European Dream Festival The Feminist Press Galerie Reinhard Hauff Galerie Röntgenraum German Consulate New York German Foreign Ministry The Global Fund to fight Aids, Malaria & Tuberculosis German Mission to the United Nations Goethe-Institut Gogorilla H&M Honeybee Robotics International Center for Tolerance Education International Crisis Group Intertextile Shanghai Japan Society Kiahkeya Dance Co. Keenen/Riley Architects Lehman Maupin Gallery Levi's
Lincoln Center Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Location Switzerland Lukas & Sternberg MacDowell Colony Mediacom Metropolitan Opera Millennium Hotels MJ Sagan Architecture MTV Networks Museum Bellerive Zürich National Park Service New York Academy of Sciences New York Waterfront Park Coalition Nickelodeon North Star Fund NYC Department of Education NYU New York University Orpheus Orchestra Ogilvy & Mather Patrick Gmuer Architekten Paul Smith Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art Pfizer, Inc. Parrish Art Museum Pro Helvetia Public Art Fund Pulse Contemporary Art Fair Rollins College of Art Skin Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs Sundance Channel Seven Stories Press
Stiftung Deutsche Welfbevölkerung Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Turkish Philanthropy Fund United Nations Van Alen Institute for Architecture Verlag Edition Fink VH1 Vilcek Foundation Vineyard Theatre WolfGordon World Health Organization
Client feedback
"I’ve worked with the designers at AHOY since before the company even launched. We’ve done everything from broadcast design to corporate identity, from ad campaigns to viral marketing together. The common thread is their great use of color, their way of creating work that’s fresh-feeling, clean and contemporary, warm and human – something that’s increasingly meaningful in our cool digital world. The process is without fail a pleasure – they understand better than many that there’s an intent to every assignment, an idea that needs to come through in the design. The work is always thoughtful and on-point as a result."
Adam Pincus, Former CCO at Sundance Channel, now Partner at Mediacom Content Group | www.sundancechannel.com
"AHOY Studios has been brilliantly creating the print graphics for the AICP Show and Next Awards for the past 15 years. Ahoy designers have always understood our 'brand' and every year inspire us with fresh, beautiful and relevant design. They are meticulous in every way, their vendors are top-notch and we don’t worry about the quality of the finished pieces. In addition, the team is a pleasure to work with – professional, enthusiastic, smart, fast, and very nice."
Ileana Montalvo, Director of Communications, Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) | www.aicp.com
"AHOY is one of the best design agencies we have ever worked with. They have a sensitive approach to a client’s needs and they create sophisticated and rich designs, with an impeccable sense of materials. All of this is mixed with a good-natured way of handling projects. It is a joy to work with them."
Antoine Vigne, Partner, Blue Medium Communication Services for Art and Culture | www.bluemedium.com
"Their pro-active style and their incredibly refined sensitivity to clients’ needs is indicative of their high level of professionalism, but it is their creativity and flexibility that make AHOY Studios so indispensable to us in our design projects and publications. It is a pleasure and a privilege to work with the team at Ahoy."
Kerstin Schütz-Müller, Director of Communications, Austrian Cultural Forum | www.acfny.org
"Working with AHOY is an enjoyable process from start to finish. Their design team is constantly creative and eternally inspired. They always consider carefully the message we want to convey, and through a substantive creative dialogue, articulate it in ways we had not previously imagined. Their hard work and dynamite graphics have made a significant contribution to the success of The Vilcek Foundation’s prizes, exhibitions and events."
Rick Kinsel, Executive Director, The Vilcek Foundation | www.vilcek.org
"The German Mission to the United Nations New York has worked with AHOY since 2008, during which time all employees of AHOY have provided us with excellent support for our corporate design. Their work has been a major factor in our campaign for Germany’s candidature for the United Nations Security Council 2011/2012. We are looking forward to a close cooperation with Ahoy studios also in the future. We can confidently recommend AHOY studios as a solid and reliable supplier and experts in their field."
Claudia Rohde, Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations | www.ny-un.diplo.de
“I’m a client of Ahoy Studios, and worked with Connie Koch and Aline Ozkan since 1997. Design produced by Ahoy possesses great conceptual strength that is further distinguished by a very particular upbeat, lively note that they have hit for every single project they have created for Wolf-Gordon. This has resulted in smart, color- and pattern-savvy projects in 2-D print, 3-D objects and catalogs, web-based animations, window displays, and advertising campaigns. I would also like to underscore Ahoy’s extreme professionalism at every stage of the design process. I cannot recommend them highly enough.”
Marybeth Shaw, Chief Creative Officer, Design & Marketing, Wolf-Gordon Inc. | www.wolf-gordon.com
“We selected Ahoy Studios as our branding and design agency for their great sense of style, sentitivity and understanding of trends in the fashion industry. In the five years of our collaboration, I found Ahoy Studios to be extremely thoughtful, creative, and professional, with a super great positive energy to get any and all jobs done! They have uplifted our brand through disciplined strategic thinking and the development of numerous efforts in print and online. In addition, they have an ability to turn work around quickly and precisely! Connie and her team always deliver more than asked for, and always on time. You can always count on them, and it’s a joy to work with them.”
Susan Beischel, President/Founder/Creative Director, Skin | www.skinworldwide.com
AHOY is inventive and strategic. For the New York Academy of Sciences, they led the rebranding effort for its annual Gala event. They created a dynamic, vibrant new look across multiple tools, from print to digital to stage design. Every tool was thoughtful, clever and underscored the mission of the Academy. Their work helped revitalize the excitement and commitment of its donors. A superb job done by an expert team. They are on my must use list.
Diane Fusilli, Director of Communications, New York Academy of Sciences
http://ahoystudios.com
