Usually the book wrapper is something you get rid of, but here… You don’t even want to take it off,” said Marcin Rutkowski, Creative Director and Co-owner of AUDE, when he got the latest culture book of ING Bank Śląski, fresh from the printing house. He grabbed it, flicked through it and put it aside with a sigh – probably of relief, as he probably decided the job has been done well.

AUDE has been making “Simply ING” culture books since 2018. Each issue is printed and published differently – once the publication was sawn with a thick thread of the color of the bank, another time it had spiral binding. This time the ING culture book has an elegant, bright orange wrapper with silver lettering (coherent with the look of the album “Kolekcja Fundacji Sztuki Polskiej ING 2000–2020”) . It hides a grey, thick paper cover.

The content, created by the Communications & Brand Experience Experts Center and the Talent & Employer Branding Expert Team (with a little help from AUDE editors, Magda Kozińska and Iwona Derda), revolve around the hashtag #30yearsTogether. In its latest culture book ING summarizes what was the best, focusing on what employees were doing in addition to their everyday responsibilities. Regular charity actions, sports events, workshops and conferences, ecological projects – nearly 200 pages of the culture book hides so many employee stories that they would be enough to share with at least several large companies.

>> Read how different the approach to culture books can be

By the way: each page of this culture book shows why it’s worth investing in professional photographers and an agency specialized in corporate media. Every page is a separate project full of photos, miniature articles and employee quotes (and it’s worth noting that ING culture book is not dominated by the management board representatives, which is frequent in other publications of such type). The varied pages were often born among vivid and loud discussions (I could hear them well, I sit two desks away) between already mentioned Marcin and Magdalena Kozińska, who has been working on “Simply ING” since its first issue. They made me realize that creativity is a little bit orange in color.

But AUDE wouldn’t be itself if we didn’t add something more to the publication than pixels and InDesign tools. For instance: Brunon Bartkiewicz, the bank’s CEO, found himself on a leash – as Marcin placed some of his quotes (taken from an internal newsletter) on an orange leash with ING logo. The leash, just like the CEO’s ID, was produced in reality, photographed and digitized. “I only had to adjust the shape of the cloud to the quote,” says Marcin. The culture book gains even more character thanks to the illustrations prepared especially for ING by illustrator Marta Danaj.

You can view “Simply ING” culture book (2020) here.