Generaxion is a digital performance agency operating across Northern Europe. The agency works with companies on SEO, paid media, and digital strategy, combining data and creative execution to drive measurable results. With offices spread across the region, Generaxion operates as one connected team under a shared culture and way of working.

The Ownership Code is a internal publication articulating that culture. Built around the idea that everyone should treat their work as if the outcome is personally theirs, it outlines a shared mindset rather than a set of rules, encouraging initiative, accountability, and follow-through at every level of the organisation.

When the Chief Justice of India compared the unemployed, lazy, chronically online youth who rant against the system to cockroaches (a comment which he retracted later), Boston University graduate student Abhijeet Dipke, with help of anonymous friends and ChatGPT, made a satire political outfit named Cockroach Janta Party.

Within a week it became world’s fastest growing online political movement, gathering hundred thousand signups in website and 20 million followers in Instagram, surpassing India’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party and main opposition party Indian National Congress combined. Its AI-generated videos and meme content caught the fancy of GenZ of India. Government crackdown in form of blocking its X handle for “threat to national security” also helped in its popularity.

How do you design a book about the disappearance of art without losing art in the process?

For Een wereld zonder kunst is een wereld zonder ziel, Cathelijne Blok’s written manifesto became a visual one. Design studio All Sizes treated the publication as a living argument: every decision in layout, pacing, and typography carries the same urgency as Blok’s words.

Control by Commercial Type reinforces that energy. Rooted in mid-century lettering manuals, Control combines the clarity of a sans serif with the immediacy of a handwritten sign. Its slightly irregular rhythm and open forms give the text a sense of movement and insistence – a voice that demands to be heard.

In short: the book doesn’t just say saving art matters – it looks like it matters.

Published by Nijgh & Van Ditmar

The Jante Law (with a lowercase a) is a set of rules in the village Jante, taken from the Danish novel En flyktning krysser sitt spor (“A fugitive crosses his tracks”) by Aksel Sandemose, published in 1933:

Don’t think you’re anything special
Don’t think you’re as much as us
Don’t think you’re wiser than us
Don’t convince yourself that you’re better than us
Don’t think you know more than us
Don’t think you are more than us
Don’t think you are good at anything
Don’t laugh at us
Don’t think anyone cares about you
Don’t think you can teach us anything

Even though the rules stem from a fictional novel, they have had a huge impact on Scandinavian culture (in the past) and could almost be considered part of the definition of many things Swedish, Danish and Norwegian (such as being neutral or not standing out).

In the spring of 2010 Konst & Teknik (K&T) were asked to contribute an image representing the studio for a feature in issue No. 14 of Graphic Magazine. K&T wanted to take something that actually represented their way of thinking at the time — good and/or bad — and decided to remake the Jante Law by changing all the don’ts to dos. K&T called the image “The JAnte Law”, in an attempt to question their Swedish heritage and in order to see these rules from a new perspective.

A few months later K&T got in touch Hagelsrums Handtryck, a wallpaper printer that prints with their own stunning colors on original brown wallpaper paper. It seemed like a good idea to turn that image (slightly updated) into a proper poster, as K&T couldn’t resist the metaphor of turning something that sits in the walls (of our culture) to something that — literally — sits on those very same walls.

The typeface, Småländsk Antikva, is an ongoing interpretation of Nordisk Antikva, many times claimed to be the first properly Swedish typeface.

Graphic Cultures of Dissent / Cultures graphiques de la contestation is the result of three years’ research devoted to the artistic, militant and counter-cultural printed matter from the 1960s and 1970s.

Initiated in 2021 by Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov, Mica Gherghescu and Thomas Bertail, this research project’s aim is to promote the artistic, activist and counter-cultural ephemera of the 1960s and 1970s held by the Kandinsky Library. Published by the Centre Pompidou and the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, it is the result of collaboration between international partners: Stuart Hall at INIVA in London, the Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis, the Beaux-arts de Paris, La Contemporaine, the Freedom Archives in San Francisco and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles (CSPG).

At the same time, the project has enabled an educational programme to be set up for students from the Paris Beaux-Arts and the University of Paris 8 | Vincennes – Saint-Denis, encouraging them to appropriate this heritage in order to breathe new life into the critical force of ephemera. Through creative and collaborative workshops involving students and their teachers, this approach has encouraged an active and contemporary exploration of these sources.

One of the main design challenge was to reflect the aesthetics of the militant publications of the 1968s without compromising the legibility of the content, the documentation of the archive or the coherence of the publication. The aim was to bring out in places the characteristic expressiveness of the Free Press press without lapsing into pastiche.
This balance between functionalism and extravagance is reflected in the typographic choices made, with the use of EB Trainer by Antoine Elsensohn and Times Dot by Laurel Schwulst.

Research and design by Anna-Lena Schmitt and Josephine Schröder in the context of a workshop format with the same name. They describe the project as follows (translated by the contributor):

We researched anger in the context of female socialisation. The aim of our work is to make anger visible. FLINTA* who have changed the world are rarely described as angry, although anger was often their driving force. Due to gender-specific historiography, FLINTA* lack both anger role models and the opportunity to be seen as such themselves.

The publication Wuträume (spaces of / for anger) documents our exploration of the topic. It takes you through the workshops and guides you through the thoughts, statements and emotions of the participants. The publication is a workshop to take away.

Set in Bastardo Grotesk by Giulia Boggio, Bianzhidai by Xiaoyuan Gao and Nomo Mono by Lea Johanna Becker.

The project, titled “FAGS”, the plural of the word “fag”, which in English slang is equivalent to the Italian slur “frocio”, takes on a new meaning here. “FAGS” becomes an acronym for “Fightin’ Against Gay Slurs”. Just as in the 1990s, the LGBTQIA+ movement reclaimed the word “queer", which was initially used with a negative connotation meaning “strange, unusual, eccentric”, with this work, I wanted to reclaim the slurs that I and so many others like me have heard repeatedly throughout our lives.

The project consists of 28 artworks presented in the form of manifestos. The choice of the manifesto format is rooted in its social and political tradition as a tool for propaganda and raising awareness. The visual and conceptual contribution of the magazine FUORI! (Fronte Unitario Omosessuale Rivoluzionario Italiano) and Marco Petrucci’s Testi Manifesti were particularly significant.

The central element of each manifesto is the slur itself, reinterpreted through the lens of irony and pride. The texts within the posters are in various languages (Italian, English, French, German, and Japanese), with a special focus on Italian and its dialects (Sicilian, Calabrian, Neapolitan, Roman, Tuscan, Bolognese, and Piedmontese) to emphasize the widespread nature of these types of insults.

The design of the posters is deliberately pop: the backgrounds, images, and fonts are crafted to capture attention and stand out from their surroundings. Two fonts were chosen: Milligram by Zetafonts for its readability and immediacy; and Brass by Fantasia Type, used not only for its bold and ironic shapes (deliberately reminiscent of intimate parts and acts) but also for the presence of an asterisk in every letter—a symbol typically associated with censorship, but here transformed into a symbol of uncensored expression.

Established in Paris by architect, designer and photographer Alexander Nino, Studio Asac is an interior design practice, furniture advisor and private antique dealer. Lareu & Gonzales – previously known as Horror Vacui Studio – were inspired by lettering from an engraver’s pattern from the early 1920s. They created a crisp, geometric semi script logotype, based on the font Adonis which was designed by Willard T. Sniffin in 1927.

Additional fonts in use include Biondi, Ray Larabie’s interpretation of Copperplate Gothic, Georges Peignot’s Nicolas Cochin, and Sigmund Freud Typeface, Harald Geisler’s digitization of the Austrian neurologist’s handwriting.

As a student assignment at the ArtCenter College of Design, instructor Charles Lin presented the following context:

Simon & Schuster, a publishing institution with a century-long legacy, undergoes a strategic rebranding following the US government’s intervention to thwart Penguin Random House's acquisition bid. This shift heralds a new era for the company, positioning it as a champion for underrepresented voices and diverse narratives.

Simon & Schuster now serves as a beacon for small-scale and marginalized authors, reshaping the literary landscape by elevating unconventional forms of expression. This rebranding initiative encapsulates the company’s commitment to fostering dialogue and inclusivity, envisioning a literary culture that transcends boundaries and embraces controversy as a catalyst for meaningful discourse.

The logo design utilizes the S from the typeface Voyage – which also reads as an ampersand. The ampersand symbolizes the brand’s commitment to unity, collaboration, and the joining of voices. Just as the ampersand brings together separate entities into a cohesive whole, the rebrand strives to amplify voices that have been marginalized, and illuminate stories that have been overlooked.

Editorial New, crafted by Pangram Pangram, elevates the brand with a sophisticated and contemporary aesthetic. Its lighter weights exude elegance, refinement, and subtlety, making them ideal for sub-headers. The heavier weights make bold statements, boasting lush curves and exaggerated forms for enhanced expressiveness. Additionally, the luscious and curvy italics serve as a pattern system, adding dynamic flair to the brand communication.

The brand voice echoes the harmony of the emotional and rational, the timeless and contemporary. IBM Plex Serif combines components from classic typefaces like Bodoni and Janson into a contemporary serif, bridging the gaps between Simon & Schuster’s long-standing heritage and relevance in the modern era.

From Gran Teatre del Liceu:

The Òh!pera project was born three seasons ago, driven by the Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Barcelona City Council, through the Disseny Hub, with the aim of being the gateway to the world of opera for young creators from all artistic fields: composers, librettists, stage directors, singers, musicians, lighting designers, students from design schools… It materializes in the creation of three contemporary operas, each lasting 30 minutes, which are performed, over a single evening, in three unusual spaces of the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

For this project, dedicated to newly created micro-operas, a communication style evoking the brutalist and minimalist aesthetics of social revolutions was chosen. The objective was to bridge the gap between the artistic revolutionary act represented by the project and its new creators, capturing the essence of change and innovation. The visual communication focused on the use of a single typographic weight – Trade Gothic Bold Condensed #20 – in uppercase, applied uniformly across all materials, using only black and red ink to emphasize the revolutionary character. In print, the design remains sober and minimalist, reflecting the seriousness and impact of the project. In contrast, in the audiovisual medium, video becomes the main communicative vehicle, treated in two inks to maintain visual coherence with the print. This strategy allowed for a cohesive and powerful approach, highlighting the effect of the artistic revolution with a distinctive and impactful presentation.

Le Labyrinthe de la Genèse invites you to play the role of a young graphic designer, freshly graduated, in search of a definition for their practice. You will eventually come across a manifesto of factographismes – a term modified and borrowed from literature of the 1960s. During that time, unique literary forms emerged in which writers used archives, facts, and often everyday objects to create factographies.

I wanted to talk about a graphic practice that uses similar methods, while emphasizing, through the journey and encounters, that there is never a single answer. My analysis starts from a particular perspective, and it could have been completely different but no less relevant. In each of these projects, the aim was to guide the readers, offering them the chance to choose their own tools and paths to follow.

The project PDF is available on the Memo dg platform, a site that gathers DNSEP theses from graphic design students across France.

An example of gender-inclusive typography at work: “l’auteur/autrice” uses BBB Baskervvol’s typographic option of showing both male and female versions of the word “author” as equally important.

Herbert Blau (1926–2013) was an American director and theoretician of performance. His manifesto for “the Impossible Theater” was published by Macmillan in 1964.

Shown here is the cover of the paperback edition by Collier from 1965, which uses an adaptation of the original jacket design. Designer Janet Halverson filled the entire “stage” with all-caps Anzeigen-Grotesk in three colors.

The cover of the 1970 Bantam Books edition of Simone de Beauvoir’s groundbreaking work. Title and author are set in Bookman Swash: a clear favourite of the graphic design agencies of the era. The promo copy including summary and blurb are in a different, plainer variant of Bookman Italic.

Swashes abound, drop, clash, and in one case a ball terminal of the swash n in Simone plays the part of the dot in the i of Beauvoir.

Description of the book by Farmacy Kitchen:

Farmacy’s new book is an insurgent manifesto for a radically different way of eating and farming. It traces a path from the health of the soil to the health of human beings, with food as the connecting agent between our mental, physical and planetary wellbeing. A collaboration between researchers, artists and writers, the Farmacy Manifesto on the Future of Food is a handsomely produced pocket-sized tour de force through the interconnected topics of soil ecology, industrial agriculture, the medicinal qualities of food, the gut-brain axis and regeneration, charting a bold path towards the renewal of our civilization. The book is authored by Aurora Solá and art directed by Carol Montpart. It features botanical image sequences by Batia Suter.

“What is honoured in a country is cultivated there.” —Plato, The Republic, Book VIII

Moki by Benoît Bodhuin is used together with Agrandir by Pangram Pangram (Latin) and Kil Hyung-jin’s Pretendard (Hangul) for Disability Art Week.

From design studio Everyday Practice’s website:

Disability Art Week in Seoul is a laboratory for discursive exploration and a venue for theory-to-practice linkages that develops key themes and unique perspectives in contemporary disability art while building its own creative methodologies and aesthetics. This year’s event featured a diverse program of domestic and international lectures, round tables, workshops, and exhibitions under the theme of ‘Disability Art Manifesto’.

Everyday Practice strived to visualize the concept of ‘all’, encompassing disabled and non-disabled people, through the image of letters of different shapes and boldness gathering and dispersing to form a single sentence. The rather heavy title of ‘Manifesto’ was made more friendly and lighthearted by applying bright key colors.

Hero image for The North Face’s 50 Years of Parkas campaign

We were thrilled to partner with The North Face in developing a campaign to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their iconic parka. This parka is not just a brilliant piece of technical gear for extreme conditions, it’s also a cultural symbol that has resonated with the masses. Our team crafted a comprehensive design system that included a dynamic motion package and an exclusive, limited-edition zine.

This system enabled us to integrate campaign photography and written interviews with some absolutely incredible people. Conrad Anker and Jimmy Chin recount epic stories of mountaineering, Quannah Chasinghorse shares what The North Face has meant to her in her advocacy and sustainability work, and Danie Sierra’s speaks of the parka’s resonance in urban culture. We had the immense pleasure of laying out their words alongside beautiful photography, from the heights of the Rocky Mountains to the streets of New York.

Druk Wide, Futura Passata, and Windsor made for perfect hero typefaces to carry this diverse cast of fascinating ambassadors – ranging from a bit nostalgic to very forward looking. They're supported by Neue Helvetica and Roboto Mono.

More examples in the full case study.

Example spread from the promotional zine, which uses a variety of typefaces including Druk Wide, Futura Passata, and Windsor

Conrad Anker’s interview in the zine, with his name in Druk Wide

Parka manifesto set in Futura Passata

Photos of Quannah Chasinghorse alongside copy set in Superclarendon

Jimmy Chin looks good wearing Druk Wide. And Parkas.

Danie Sierra's name set in Futura Passata. Interview text is Neue Helvetica.

Examples of motion assets

Example of out-of-home advertising on screens

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Initiated in 2019 by poet, composer and storyteller Rajae El Mouhandiz, Ellae is a foundation located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Recognized a public benefit organization, its main focus lies on improving the professional career of women artists of all kinds who are still far underrepresented in the cultural sector. Ellae wants to close the gap for artists regarding disadvantages related to gender, social background, and economic status. But its scope is far wider, as it also addresses institutions from the culture and art industries, creates networks, launches artistic collaborations and projects, and battles to raise awareness among the general public. Or, in their own words, they are a creative impact platform.

The backbone to all of this is the well-filled website conceived of and designed by Eskimo°s vorm & idee, the joint label of marketing expert Simone Rentmeester and graphic designer Esmée Erdtsieck. The Ellae logo emphasizes the parallel strokes in the double l and thereby introduces a recurring element of the site’s headlines, the equation mark. The overall web design has the appeal of a magazine with a generous white backdrop, reading text in different sizes and column widths, and eye-catching photographs. A nice effect is the color change upon hover, highlighting key words. At the bottom of almost every subpage you will find an invitation to interaction.

The typeface used here is Proto Grotesk, in Light, Regular and Bold, designed by Jean-Baptiste Levée and available from Production Type. This sans serif was inspired by early 19th century designs when the genre still allowed for excentric combinations, round and squarish, monolinear and high-contrast, sans and an occasional slab serif. It is a marvellous pick for this website as it embodies some of the core aspects of Ellae that value different backgrounds, underscore multivoicedness, and achieve strength through unity.

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.instagram.com Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.ellae.nl Ellae. License: All Rights Reserved.

Logo variants

Launched by the CANA Foundation, Generation Cana is —

a concept by an established conservationist who wants to popularise and inspire a new and diverse generation of Americans to fall in love with their natural landscapes and support rewilding – of their own worldviews, and of the lands they live on.

The Cana Foundation (CF) supports research, policy and action to support the wellbeing of horses and burros in North America, and the role they play in America’s iconic prairie and grassland ecosystems. With strong connections to first nations communities and the nexus of social justice and environmental issues, CF’s founder wanted to reach more people and inspire a new audience to take action in ways that went beyond specific policy solutions.

The graphic identity was designed by Studio Chenchen with a range of new logos to promote the foundation through various printed and digital media. Studio Chenchen comments:

The brand concept, Love Songs to America, is based on revitalising North American Romanticism.

Its visual language draws on iconic precedents in North American naturalism that we updated to reach modern, urban audiences. An internal brand manifesto was established to crystalise the brand’s purpose, tone of voice and personality, along with a set of illustrative templates, design applications, and targeted messaging to demonstrate how the brand can be applied to achieve the clients goals.

Logo version ft. Kerozene, Swear, and Copperplate Gothic

Logo version in Swear and Copperplate Gothic

Kerozene and Editorial New Italic

Playlist covers ft. Kerozene and Editorial New Italic

Manifesto featuring Swear, Sharp Sans, and an unidentified serif [edit: it’s Eiko, see comments].

Instagram template ft. Swear, Copperplate Gothic, and Mighty Slab

Longsleeves

Swear and Sharp Sans, with an unidentified serif for the URL

AL BIES magazine arises from the concern and effort to give visibility to the work of the students of EASD de Moda, the Higher Education in Fashion Design, at San Telmo School of Art in Málaga, Spain. It aims to serve as a platform for sharing what moves and concerns us and what we can contribute from our humble position in the world.

The expression al bies, which means “on bias” or “diagonal” comes from the French term biais, a type of seam cut that is made at 45 degres with respect to the thread. The publication’s name has a lot to do with our way of seeing and feeling fashion. A diagonal line loaded with visual strength and attraction, a line of tension that generates a break in the visual path, directing the eyes and attracting attention.

This publication full of editorial elements has a marked typographic character. The use of Zodiak and JetBrains Mono gives it personality, which together with the layout and composition make AL BIES an attractive publication for the public interested in studying at this school.

This is the 1972 paperback edition of André Breton's Manifestoes of Surrealism. I believe the interior to be the same as the hardcover, but I don't know for sure. (As with the hardcover, the book design is credited to Quentin Fiore.)

The cover uses skewed Helvetica Compressed [see comments] for the author's name, and Inserat-Grotesk for the book title. The decorative dingbat is picked up from the hardcover design, and skewed to match the new type. Also, like the hardcover, note the unusual solution for the accent on the E in André, this time using a line parallel to the top bar of the E.

The interior of the book is notable for its use of a different text face for each section.

The title page spread uses Sans Shaded for the title and Anzeigen Grotesk for the author's name. The translator credits are in Bodoni Italic, and the publisher names are in Helvetica Medium.

The copyright page is in Times New Roman Italic, and the table of contents is in Helvetica.

The section openers are set in Bodoni Bold.

The texts are set in a mix of Baskerville, Century Expanded, Helvetica, and Bodoni Bold.

Within the first manifesto is “Poem,” randomly assembled from headlines and scraps of headlines, reset in many typefaces, including Cheltenham, Baskerville, Vulcan Bold Italic (see Greco, Latin Bold and Latin Wide, Windsor Bold, Beton Bold, and Clarendon.