The project Wo is Heimat? (full title in English “Where is Home? Stories of Ukrainian Children and Teenagers”) explores the personal experiences of young refugees who fled Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2022 – their memories of the first days of the war and their forced escape in search of a new shelter, a new home. The stories of these children are brought to life through powerful illustrations by Ukrainian artist Maria Vyshedska, herself a refugee.

The project was realized both as an exhibition (in Germany and Poland) and as a book. It was produced in three languages: Ukrainian, English, and German.

The choice of typeface for this project was clear from the very beginning. Originally designed as part of the brand identity for the city of Mariupol shortly before the full-scale Russian invasion, the Mariupol typeface has since become a symbol of Ukrainian cultural resistance – a political artifact. It is an example of how design can transcend the boundaries of form and become content.

Idea and project management by Christine Frick. Ulyana Shevchenko served as project coordinator and translator.

Reclaim Poetry, January 2024. Two posters, each with a quote. On the left a quaote by Simone Marcelli Pitzalis: “inhabiting a place not ours in suspension is the definition / of haunting a home”. On the right, words from Arundhathi Subramaniam: “It took some time / to realize that /poems are important / Because they have holes in them”.

Reclaim Poetry, January 2024. “And that failing would serve, if only, to repudiate, exorcise the master's damned tools” – Wissal Houbabi

Reclaim Poetry, January 2024. “Bless me free, and be patient / Before my rejection.” – Maram al-Masri

Reclaim Poetry, January 2024. “And I will turn into marvel” – Chandra Livia Candiani

Reclaim Poetry, January 2024. “The word is an entanglement, then collapses like any monument” – Silvia Bre

Reclaim Poetry, March 2024. “No one puts their children on a boat unless the water is safer than land.” – Warsan Shire

Reclaim Cavalli, May 2024

Reclaim Cavalli, April 2024. “I wasn't born to be reasonable”

John Philips Sage designed an infographic in four posters, based on Andreas Hackl’s research on refugee work in the digital economy. For the typography, he picked Romie by Margot Lévêque and Crime Fighter by Blambot Comic Fonts.

Poster series that seeks to explain the reality of refugees in the current war between Ukraine and Russia through the importance of proper names and their contributions to the war. The Ukrainian title reads Путін вторгається в Україну (“Putin invades Ukraine”).

Please note that the names are figurative in order to maintain the respective privacy.

Freetown was a contemporary art village at the Fire is Gold music festival. The idea was to create a refugee-like town, put up with basic materials. Twelve aspiring artists of color were given a stage to show their work.

Keen was commissioned to create the identity. The logo is an animated flag that is used in several versions in print and digital. Colors and typefaces are a clash of styles with red and yellow, and Cinderblock and ITC Clearface. The color choice was also practical because the colors had to work well in every application, from a small screen to a 6m banner.

Freetown is a project by The Constant Now, art space for diversity; S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent; and ART United.

After the Escape is an exhibition project combining pictures by Ostkreuz photography agency, the Records of War Archive by Troyanda Studio with live events curated by Vitsche (among others).

Each day, gruesome news and pictures reach us from Ukraine. There is a war in Europe. Millions of people are fleeing from the Russian army.

Two members of the Ostkreuz photography agency, Johanna-Maria Fritz and Mila Teshaieva, are in Ukraine since the large-scale war started. Their contributions to the exhibition show us what people are fleeing from. Since the beginning of March, Ostkreuz photographers are portraying those who are on the run. In short texts, refugees tell their personal stories.

After the Escape wants to set a stage for Ukrainian people. We want to invite artists and performers from Ukraine to a series of events at Zionskirche Berlin. The project was founded as a reaction and is continually shapeshifting as it’s going along. We want to listen, to learn, to be committed.

The exhibition visuals, designed by KlimaitėKlimaitė, pair a vibrant blue backdrop with typography set in KTF Rublena and a yet unidentified monospaced typeface [edit: it’s JetBrains Mono, see comments].

Refugees Welcome is an annual young art auction held by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. The identity, printed materials and website were designed by deal design • studio using Fason typeface from Laïc: Type.

Words from the website:

The aim of the auction is to support refugees living in Poland. The income from the sale of the works will be allocated to co-finance two programs coordinated by the Ocalenie Foundation. [...]

All the auctioned works were displayed at the pre-auction exhibition at the Museum on the Vistula River in Warsaw. The exhibition took place from April 8 to May 15, 2022, from 12:00 to 19:00. [...]

The Refugees Welcome charity art auction was held on Sunday, 15 May 2022, at 5:00 pm, and the proceeds went to the Ocalenie Foundation. The artists included in the auction may receive 25% of the sale price of their works, but many of them have waived this right, passing on the entire proceeds to the foundation.

See also the online version of the catalog.

From charity Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS):

In support of Refugee Week 2022, MOAS has been working with the Manchester based Studio Treble and a network of talented artists and creatives to generate a suite of artworks in the theme of ‘Family Reunification’ – a key part of MOAS’ work in the promotion and support of ‘Safe & Legal Routes’ for migrants and refugees worldwide.

This creative piece To-gether visually represents MOAS’ work through the metaphor of a piece of paper. Taking the audience on a journey; from a single A4 sheet that was trimmed and separated, to being bound back together and reunited in a whole new format. Highlighting the fact that family and friends, belong, to be loved, to-gether. Animation was introduced to elevate the story behind the concept and format.

Neue Haas Unica was chosen for its functionality, relaxed friendliness and clarity, without detracting attention away from delivering an important message.

Zgodilo se je čisto blizu nas (“It happened very close to us”) is an exhibition of the 30th anniversary of the arrival of migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia, exhibited at Match Gallery, Ljubljana. The exhibition and parallel events were coordinated by Divja misel. The show and the visual communication were designed by Alja Herlah and Sara Badovinac (studio Pra Pra), using typeface Wesna (Type Salon) and Inter (Rasmus Andersson). We can notice the modification of Wesna: its more expressive S was altered to be more neutral.

“Gradually, I realise I am a refugee. A person without documents and without a face, with no present and no future. A person with a heavy stride and a broken body, a flower of evil, alien and scattered as its pollen. I no longer have a name, I am no longer tall nor short, no longer a son or a brother. I am an oblivion-soaked dog in a long, morningless night, a tiny scar on the face of the world.” – Velibor Čolić, Manual of Exile (Goga, 2020)

Curator Tina Popovič on the exhibition:

On the 30th anniversary of the beginning of war and the arrival of BiH migrants to Slovenia, we are addressing our shared, yet poorly known experience with the help of personal memories of migrants as well as the people who helped welcome them. The exhibition, which assembles personal memories of 45 individuals with selected media reports and other docu-mentation, is divided into two parts.

Stories about the leaving of homes, arrivals to Slovenia and the unusual life in exile, which from expected weeks inconceivably expanded to years, are presented at the Match Gallery. Some of the exiles grew up here, others grew old, some made Slovenia their home, others just passed it on their way.

Collected memories encourage us to reflect on our actions and our attitude towards those people who all over the world are being forced to leave their homes.

Atlantique Miami’s rhythm and crisp design offer great readability in text, while its incisive details are striking and carry strong identity when the typeface is used in headlines and titles. Its angular cut ends give it a bold character and make it an ideal typeface for press, news or current events reports as the recent publications of graphic designer Paul Alexander Stolle.

Refugees Welcome is an annual young art auction held by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Identity, catalog and leaflets designed by deal design studio using Iskry typeface and the yet unreleased Kompan from Laïc: Type.

The catalog is available as a pdf download. This years edition was held as a pre-auction exhibition followed by an online auction. From the organisers:

The auction was conducted by Marcel Andino Velez, longtime deputy director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, for the second time. The auction catalogue includes 40 works by exceptional Polish and foreign artists. The pre-auction exhibition was held at the Museum of Modern Art at ul. Pańska 3, Warsaw, from 15 to 19 June 2021. The auction itself was held remotely. Bidding was available online, by phone or by submitting fixed instructions with a price limit, with the support of Artinfo, Desa or the Friends of the Museum of Modern Art. There was social media streaming available.

All proceeds from the sale of works was donated to support refugees living in Poland. The Refugees Welcome auction engages artists, art collectors and volunteers every year to help refugees. It is a unique example of solidarity in a difficult time of the pandemic. It proves that we want to do something for others. And thanks to the auction, we can do it in a unique way. Together, we build a new culture of hospitality.

Comissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Fundacja Ocalenie.
Deal Design are Jan Diehl Michałowski, Jakub Olejnik, Martyna Rudnicka, Tomek Wróbel.

View of the front and side sign of the City Plaza Hotel, at the intersection of Acharnon and Katrivanou streets.

From 2016 until its peaceful evacuation in 2019, City Plaza Hotel was a squatted space, functioning as a housing facility for refugees.

From Mother Design:

Helping the children of Za′atari share their world. When Save The Children invited us to visit Za’atari – the world’s second largest refugee camp and home to over 80,000 Syrians – we discovered an incredible project. Magnum photographer Michael Christopher Brown had created a photography class in which he gave 12 children iPhones and equipped them with the skills to tell their own stories. These kids have no direct connection to the outside world; no way to share their story and, vitally, to have others respond. My Own Account was about going beyond the photographs, creating an opportunity to engage with the people behind them. We took inspiration from social media to create an exhibition in which visitors coulld show their love for the photographs that they really connected with. These interactions were recorded and shared with the children of Za’atari in what, for many, was their first interaction with the world outside since arriving at the camp.

Harbour from Alias is used for headlines throughout the project. On the exhibition walls, it is paired with all caps Gotham from Hoefler & Co.; a yet unidentified sans serif is used for collateral items.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

“This is the new mimeo revolution!” — installation with the 100 pamphlets plus protest signs at the HBKsaar.

This is my graduation project made at HBKsaar, titled New Mimeo Revolution. In addition to writing a thesis, I printed one hundred pamphlets on the mimeograph and set up an exhibition. For this, I created a visual identity with Hobeaux as display typeface and Pitch for text uses. I combined those with a very direct and emotional language of forms and symbols.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Invitation to the exhibition of graduation projects, printed on paper of various colors. Hobeaux is used in all caps and paired with Pitch for the smaller text.

This post shows several images of the project as a whole, followed by a selection of the individual pamphlets. From the project website:

The Mimeo-Revolution was a movement of young American artists during the 50s and 60s, who spread their art and thoughts amongst the people through personal commitment and the use of a stencilprinter, also called a mimeograph.

The mimeograph was invented at the end of the 19th century, when ever-increasing bureaucracy also intensified the demand for copying documents. Shortly after the mimeograph revolutionized office work, the cheap and simple process also conquered the streets: schools, churches, subcultures and parties printed their own documents independently from professional printers or major publishers. This led to the rise of student groups like “Weiße Rose”, which allied itself against the Nazi regime during the Second World War; or students during the ’68 Revolutions, who resisted rigid structures, oppression, the Vietnam War, and conservative sexual morality all over the world.

Nowadays, I choose to print pamphlets with this traditional technique, because I want to continue to build upon what the generations before me have been able to achieve. It’s important for me to engage myself and get my hands dirty during the process of making a difference.

I am currently interested in topics related to environmental protection, democracy, gender equality and human rights. In addition to political topics, I also deal with artists who use words in a particularly eloquent or emotional manner, or who criticize or speak from the heart.

During my final year at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, I printed 100 different pamphlets on the previously mentioned and other topics, on a 1967 ideal stencilprinter and a Gestetner printer from the 1950s.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

View of the exhibition.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Leaflets are being flung from the top of the building.

Source: newmimeorevolution.smvi.co Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Project website.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

“We buy things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don’t like.” The featured quote by Chuck Palahniuk is shown in caps from Obviously, with a psychedelic distortion effect.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Route barée means “road closed” and is the perfect metaphor for the hopelessness of the situation and the French people during the strike of the yellow vest movement. The rotated lines are set in Combat.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Das Wasser stieg (“The waters increased”) is a quote from Genesis 7:17, here referring to the implications of global warming.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Contrary to what one can usually read on plastic bags, the text (in Bookman) here says “Thank You for NOT Using Me!”. The small text below explains that the bag will stay around in the environment for twenty years.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

This pamphlet with an excerpt from Ronald Reagan's famous speech held in Berlin in 1987 is more actual than ever; a response to Trump’s plan to build a wall between the USA and Mexico. The font on this is Sporting Grotesque.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

The “Hymn to the Mimeograph Revolution” from Ed Sanders, set in ITC American Typewriter Condensed Bold and Pitch.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Treffen sich zwei Kinder mit Interkontinentalraketen … (“When two children meet with intercontinental missiles …”) could be the beginning of a good joke, but it was reality. Friendly Gooper, set on a wavy line, on a pink background, underlines the comedy of this meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

The European Union is tolerant and diverse just as this draft of the Second Article of the Treaties of the European Union. The fonts used (from top to bottom) are: Folio Condensed Bold, Tango, Vulf Mono Bold and Pitch Regular.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

“Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht” is a famous song from Ton Steine Scherben and a great reminder to fight all our inner and outer demons! The message is set in historical Eckmann, which fits perfectly with its slighty psychedelic feeling.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

I always loved the Refugees Welcome illustration of the running family with its roots in 1990. But the font could use a makeover: How about Cooper Black? Maybe it is that simple.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland Art. 20a set in Ouroboros, Octopuss Outline, Cooper Black Italic and Pitch Regular.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Good use of VTF’s Résistance for Article 5 of the German Grundgesetz: “There will be no censorship”.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

Rhetoric of the evil: Hate (Old English), Sex (Cooper Black), Fear (Combat).

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

This pamphlet featuring BioRhyme Light, Gill Sans Ultrabold, Gooper in various styles, and Protocol is about the sexism in German football between 1955 and 1970.

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

My grandpa says “In the past there was meat only once a week”. Meanwhile he eats it every day. The font used is Plaktur (a modern and groovy interpretation of a fraktur font, still in progress, by Max Holl).

Chiara Schwarz. License: All Rights Reserved.

This is the 100th pamphlet of the series which draws the conclusion from the project. It is made with Letraset in Bookman. “Jan Norling” is added from ITC Bookman Italic [thanks, Jay].

Roquefort in use for the visual identity of the Paris-based Beats Across Borders Association, which organizes cultural events in support of refugees.

In times of unprecedented human displacement, human dignity and proper living conditions are not guaranteed for millions of people. Fleeing — no matter for what reason — is a transitional status, a hopeful expectation for a change, withstanding the unbearable for a new live. Za’atari is a refugee camp in Jordan which is now turning little by little into a perpetual home for thousands of people. It is one of the biggest refu­gee camps in the world and one of the biggest cities in Jordan. The visual reader is dealing with the photojournalistic representation of children in the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan. Therefor it is setting the Za’atari Project made by NOOR into context to underline the importance of photojournalism in this area. The second part introduces the NOOR pro­ject and the four photographers being involved and following it up with a stylistic and thematic comparison of the photographers work in Za’atari.

2018; together with Ines Glowania; Supervision: Delphine Bedel, In collaboration with NOOR images, Nina Berman, Andrea Bruce, Alixandra Fazzina and Stanley Greene, Design Academy Eindhoven; Printed on Betty at the American Book Center, Amsterdam

Kiron Open Higher Education for Refugees is a nonprofit EdTech organization that uses digital innovation to provide refugees with access to quality higher education.

New Beginnings is a magazine with autobiographical stories written by Kiron students. The layout refers to the title by focusing on initial letters and initial words as well as it is supposed to provide an individualised layout for each story by using a typographic system. The dots and lines on the magazine cover refer to the country of origin and the current country of residence of each author. 56 pages, 185×245 mm.

How do our inner worlds define the lines we draw and the space we create?

Boundaries shape the way we live, love and work—but what do our boundaries say about who we are underneath? Our third issue looks at personal space from the inside out through intimate essays, revealing reported features, insightful interviews, gorgeous photography and more.—Anxy

The magazine uses a variety of typefaces: Noe Display is used for the Anxy logotype; articles are typeset in Maax with some streamers set in Maax Mono; headlines in this issue use Larish Alte (Radim Peško), more Maax (using its striking stylistic set No. 01 with geometric alternate shapes), Ogg (Sharp Type) and Alias Type’s Harbour.

Bureau 205 has designed and formatted this information guide for families – and their supporters – of people who have died or disappeared in the central Mediterranean on a journey to Italy. It is published by the Boats4People coalition, which includes La Cimade, which brings together 11 associations on both sides of the Mediterranean shores. The designers worked with typeface Plaak, created by Damien Gautier and available from 205TF. In addition to the French, English, and Italian editions shown here, there are also versions in Arabic and Tigrinya.

Starting from the local announcement of the Brenner border restoration by the Austrian government, that risks to turn South Tyrol/Alto Adige, Italy, into another symbol of the EU disintegration, Europa Dreaming is an online project that adds its own reflections to the European debate generated by the migrant crisis. What happens to the European dream when it meets the migrants dream? Is this the Europe we dreamt of? Is the Schengen Agreement the way to the European dream? Probably not. — cairn.info

Europa Dreaming is a visual journalism project. It features Calibre Bold and Inconsolata on a greyish design that aims to evoke the consumed documents and photocopies migrants often bring themselves, with useful information, hand-drawn maps and memories. At the same time, the design reconnects with black and white newspapers that are the core of the archive research at the base of the project.