Working with the UAL Branding team, we designed a new visual identity for the The Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN), which investigates historical, theoretical and practice-based research in art, architecture, craft and design.

Being a concept-based department, we approached it from a concept-first basis by designing a ‘polymorph’ – challenging our ideas of how we perceive and understand a ‘globe’, its ever-changing form and nature in various levels of abstraction, and expressing this visually through a simple language that takes inspiration from concepts of map projection and cartography. This design conveys ideas of blurred boundaries and our constantly changing, shape-shifting world. 

A Polymorph has no boundaries and no fixed state. It represents a ‘universal’ form. It represents our perceptions of the world, and the multiple perspectives we can take to understand it.

This polymorph is part of a flexible visual kit, designed to work across multiple scales and purposes.

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