Future Graphic Language: New Directions In Verbal Communication is a collection of essays that sum up the Future Graphic Language symposium held in 2019 at the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw as part of Future Text.

The book is typeset in typefaces of Le Laïc: Type Foundry: Figiel for headlines and the yet unreleased Kompan for the body of text.

The design aims to celebrate multiple directions of reading and communicating as well as it tries to challenge the traditional way of handling book as an item. Multiple pieces of custom lettering were created for the Future Text project, including an inverted contrast logotype and a variable type header, which were 3D printed. Retor is used for the visual communication fo the symposium.

The book was designed between 2020 to 2021.

Graphic identity, website design and printed materials designed by Lara Coromina Parcet for CODA, the 2nd Young Architecture Biennal of Catalonia, which took place at Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC) in Barcelona during October 2025. The design features Comma Type’s CMM Coda in its Normalized version throughout.

Referencing the musical figure of the coda – an independent ending that rewrites itself, that reiterates, that deforms under its own rules – we claim an ending not as closure, but as a threshold. A gesture that is articulated from inherited frameworks and transforms them into possibility.

Following the manifesto’s call to “recognize failed, unfinished, or obsolete architectures as active parts of the landscape”, the graphic identity was built by gathering textures using frottage. This analogue technique, which consists of rubbing paper with a pencil directly against material surfaces, became the starting point for creating visual impressions of the surrounding environment: non-linear traces of architecture, marks of what is worn, unfinished, or already turning obsolete.

From these traces, a visual system of overlapping textures, lines, patterns, and typography was developed, echoing the manifesto’s idea of a “persistent, dense atmosphere”. In this landscape, ruins are not endings but material to work with, and the biennial’s identity embraces the end (Coda) as a place of possibility, where what remains can be reactivated, layered, and transformed into something new.

CODA was curated by Naiara Albizua & Carmen Salas (objet a) and organized by AJAC Agrupació de Joves Arquitectes de Catalunya under the direction of Dani Montes and Guillem Elvira. Website code by Clara Layti. All photographs by Natalia Vaquero. Risograph printing by Do the Print.

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Shaping Atmospheres was a symposium and an exhibition concerned with geoengineering. It took place last November at the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and brought together “technical, social-political, and philosophical perspectives to speculate on the significance and implications of shaping atmospheres”.

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Raf Rennie’s identity for the event is based on a logo in tightly spaced caps from Shàngó, an uppercase-only typeface by CastleType. When additional formats like the schedule poster and the speaker slides required a more flexible typographic option, Rennie found it in Kessler by Production Type. Alaric Garnier’s typeface shares various stylistic traits with Shàngò (see the visual comparison below), but crucially offers lowercase characters.

The similarities aren’t coincidental: both designs have their roots in titling alphabets that originated in the book arts movement of the early 20th century, and can be described as period interpretations the classical Roman capital. Garnier’s primary inspiration was an alphabet designed by Eric Gill* in 1905 for the bibliophilic editions of Harry Kessler, founder of the Cranach Press in Weimar, initially published in cooperation with the Insel Verlag in Leipzig. Shàngó, on the other hand, is a revival of Schneidler Initials, drawn by F.H. Ernst Schneidler, proprietor of the short-lived Juniperus Press in Stuttgart, and first cast by the Bauer type foundry in Frankfurt in 1937. A precursor was included in the Wassermann, a voluminous portfolio of sheets for teaching lettering and type design started by Schneidler in 1925.

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Shàngó (top) and Kessler (bottom, here the Display cut) exhibit various similarities: both feature classical proportions with a narrow E and S, W is made from two overlapping V’s, J descends but has no full hook, and U is stemmed.

Other aspects are different: in Shàngó, the A has a lower bar and no top serif, the leg in R doesn’t meet the stem, and M has splayed stems. Shàngó offers swash caps, three weights, and Gothic, Sans and Chiseled variants. Kessler crucially has a lowercase – as well as optical sizes, italics, and a monospaced companion (not pictured here).

The typographic palette for Shaping Atmospheres is completed by Octave, Josh Finklea’s reconsideration of Frutiger’s Univers, released with Sharp Type.

*) Production Type is conscious of the contentious aspect of publishing a work that is in some way connected to child rapist Eric Gill. Proceeds of Kessler’s licensing are transferred to L’Enfant Bleu, an association providing protection, care, and information to children victims of ill-treatment.

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Animation by Daria Khazova

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Co-curator and organizer Ala Roushan of OCAD University presents the Shaping Atmospheres project.

Free Radicals is a symposium that took place between 23 and 25 May 2025 in Prague, followed by additional events along the course of two years in other European cities. It is dedicated to exploring the state of play around thinking with plants in creative research and brought together artists, scientists, researchers, and creative practitioners.

Its communication was created by type and graphic designer Jolana Sýkorová. She used the free font NaN Holo Gigawide Ultra for all titles and NaN Holo’s Regular for all other texts. Sýkorová makes a liberal use of the blocky and black titling fonts for big headlines in all-caps with a tight linespacing and mid-word linebreaks to accommodate with the wideness of the font. The relative control of the layout is occasionally disturbed by mid-word change in the colour of the fonts and by a recurring pattern of colourful polka dots overlapping the words, like a kind of mold or lichen.

Softer Digital Futures: London 2025 brought together artists, designers, and thinkers to imagine regenerative, nature-inspired approaches to technology. Held at The Art House in Hackney, the event featured panels, performances, an exhibition, and immersive design spaces.

This year’s visual identity, created by Lucy Harmony Grimes, played a central role – merging digital and organic aesthetics in a bold, soft-femme-tech style. Through swirling textures, butterfly motifs, and a palette of pinks, flowers, and bubbles, the identity challenged the tech industry’s typical hard-edged minimalism. They used a combo of soft sans serif and rounded pixel fonts. Among them, Raum by Justin Sloane, Acid Grotesk by Folch, and what looks like a modified setting of Lineto’s LL Moonbase, featuring its alternate e.

Raum introduced inktrap-dented letterforms that added a tactile, humanized feel to the branding. It extended across physical and digital formats, including merch, and signage, shaping the atmosphere of the event. The result was a cohesive, expressive design ecosystem that echoed the conference’s themes of ecological intelligence, more-than-human design, and digital softness.

Symposion – Ein Tischgespräch über die Kulturarbeit (“A round table about cultural work”) is the title of Jana Vogt’s thesis in Communication Design made at MSD – Münster School of Design in 2023.

The five people who speak in this symposium are mosaic-like assemblages. They are perspective rather than person. Catalysts who were allowed to “feed” on ten personally conducted interviews and ten literary and academic discussions from the field of cultural work.

Jana Vogt gave each of the different perspectives their own voice by using one of the nine styles of VARIANZ. Thus, the tone of the conversation varies and corresponds to the spoken word without creating disharmony or visual clutter.

The Aureum font by Anna Sing is used in initials, interjections and headlines. VARIANZ by Viktor Zumegen is used for subtitles, body text and footnotes.

Jana Vogt writes:

The symposium is a table talk, a playful exchange about the value of cultural work. It is a literary buffet of facts, personal hopes, and concerns of cultural workers. Coming from different places, yet sitting at the same table, those working in culture negotiate realities, share and listen, and feel a sense of belonging. Can this practice, and the feeling it creates for the fictional guests and readers, give rise to a better understanding and appreciation of the process behind cultural production? In my creative process, I combine ethnographic and creative methods. I have organised real voices from the cultural sector in a fictional way on paper and formulated prominent common demands and messages. The table setting is both an invitation and a call: to enter into conversation about what culture creates and what we could create together; to value the efforts it takes to cultivate occasions for encounter, for collective and sensual consumption.

Kunst og krig / Art and War was a symposium organized by Arctic Art Institute and Deichman. It took place at Deichmanske bibliotek in Bjørvika, Oslo, in October 2022.

The aim of the symposium is to discuss the nuances of the current situation with artists who are critical of the Ukraine war and establish a platform for stories, which are rarely communicated in the major mainstream media.

The typography pairs Director and Roboto Flex.

Presentation with Director and Roboto Flex at the Deichman Bjørvika, Oslo, in October 2022

Logo and branding for ISSS 2019, the 5th International Symposium on Solar Sailing.

Since its inauguration in Herrsching, Germany in 2007, the ISSS takes place every three years and has already been held in New York, Glasgow and last in Kyoto in 2017. The 5th International Symposium on Solar Sailing was held from July 30th to August 2nd 2019 at the FH Aachen in Aachen, Germany.

The logo and mission patch pair Roboto and Roboto Mono with custom lettering for “ISSS”.

The modified S is a fond tribute to NASA’s iconic “Worm” logo.

From Operative.Space:

Visual appearance of the symposium “City Sounds – City Atmospheres” organized by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), today at CLB Berlin. With contributions by Sam Auinger, Gernot Böhme, Peter Cusack, Maren Hartmann, Johanna Just, Sarah Lappin, DietmarOffenhuber, Juhani Pallasmaa, Peter Payer, Birgit Schneider, Holger Schulze.

Typefaces in use: #Vinila by @floradecarvalho and #Rosart Italic by @ka_tell

A selection of posters and printed matter using Everett for various events (symposium, screening, lectures, etc.) which took place in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong during 2017. Graphic Design & Art Direction by Stille Studio.

Poster and website designed by U-P for the Molonglo symposium and public lectures program titled Landscape as Protagonist:

The day-long, by-invitation symposium and three public lectures is organized by Molonglo as part of Melbourne Design Week, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.

A program that attempts to challenge our own and the development industry’s perspectives on plants and landscapes in the built realm; where generally speaking, they are viewed as aesthetic objects used to beautify.

Landscape as Protagonist takes place on the traditional lands of the people of the Kulin nation. We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and extend this respect to all indigenous australians.

Droulers is used throughout.

BRB is a live-stream symposium about streaming lifestyles, interface aesthetics, virtual urbanism, esport bodies. Among the speakers are Matt Asato-Adams, Jess Frucht, Nathan Hertz, Rachel Kinnard, and Sam Rolfes. BRB is organized by Ben Hooker and Jenny Rodenhouse and hosted in the Wind Tunnel Gallery, ArtCenter College of Design.

The Deutscher Historikertag symposium is one of the largest historical conventions in Europe. The aim of the 2016 symposium was to investigate the relationship between faith and knowledge.
In addition to the corporate design, we also developed a system of signs that incorporated the overall design language to help visitors navigate around the event. The playful arrows and the especially designed font was featured on signs, walls, floor displays and on staff members’ T-shirts.

In this identity for Columbia GSAPP’s Spring Symposium, “Architecture + Technology: Pedagogy in an Age of Disruption”, designer Nicholas Weltyk employs a deconstructed grid where the setting flows in complete rigor with the spaces of the structure. The use of New Century Schoolbook not only gives the pieces an authorative and academic feeling, but also recalls a certain grid-loving Vignelli.

The Leipzig “Typotage” type conference takes place since 1995 in the printing museum, first as a two or three day fest, since 2008 as a one day event. After many years of changing looks, Maurice Göldner and Susanne Richwien gave the Typotage a new and current design. The website, realised by Zentrumwest, makes great use of Thomas Thiemich’s typeface Remo, published by Ourtype. (As an aside, Göldner and Thiemich, as well as Peter Mohr and Monique Dickmanns of Zentrumwest, studied typeface design in Leipzig with Fred Smeijers.)

The titles of past conferences link to their respective old website and show how excellent the current design for 2014 is.

Babel #1 is an international type symposium held right now (the 27th of November) at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main. Apart from Offenbach’s other delights (among them Äppelwoi and others), the symposium scores with speakers like Peter Biľak (typotheque) and Na Kim, who art-directed the renowned Korean Graphic magazine.

The simple, one-page website uses Radim Peško’s Larish Neue, a typeface rarely seen on today’s screens. The font is inspired by letterforms that the Viennese typographer Rudolf von Larisch drew about a century ago.