About

Speculative Identities Research and Exploration

Year 2022

The practice of creating marks, to serve as visual identifying devices for things, is one that has been with humans for a very long time. From the dawn of civilization, it has evolved in both purpose and application, alongside myriad societies and technologies, before finally arriving at the modern logo and corporate identity system as we know them today. And with that practice reaching so far back into our collective past, and taking so many different forms along the way, it's easy to imagine it being with us in some manner, far into whatever future we may have ahead of us.

Interestingly enough, imagining the possibilities is something we’ve already been doing. All a person needs to do is look to science fiction, a storytelling genre where imagining a future world or alternate reality often times involves the invention of marks and logos in the process.

It is with this in mind that we've embarked on this journey with Speculative Identities — exploring the worlds of science fiction in search of the possibilities they present, to see what kind of role visual identities have in our imagined frontiers and futures, and to learn how those works can inform the designer of today.