Stories Across Borders
Client
inbetweenish x Hedvig Sandbu
Scope
Branding, Creating the Visual Identity,
Experience Design for SAB sessions
Discipline
Branding
Graphic Design
Experience Design
Question and Goal:
Design a brand identity for Stories Across Borders
How might we design a harmonious brand identity for an initiative that bravely creates space for open discussions on polarizing topics with a group full of strangers?
In this intimate space, my co-host Hedvig Sandbu and I, bring together individuals who value the power of conversation and listening to diverse perspectives. This collaborative project was born in late 2023 out of our own frustration with developments around the world and the bigger questions they bring up that often go unanswered and undiscussed.
Ideation and Concept Development:
The Ripple Effect of Dialogue
The first step was to understand what our offer was “a safe space to discuss human issues” and explore how we might materialize this concept into a cohesive brand identity. We looked into developing word mark logos, pictorial mark logos, and abstract logos exploring conversation symbolism, to stories/books, to speech bubbles and more.
Eventually we developed 4 directions: (A) explored a coffee mark as a symbol of getting together to hold conversation, (B) a more abstract representation of flowing dialogue, (C) a more literal path of quotation marks—a universal symbol, and (D) the ripple effects that creates ever-growing circles.
Once direction D was finalized, I developed other collaterals to support our monthly sessions. We wanted to effectively communicate and illustrate our intentions, house rules, the main take-away quote from the selected short film, and upcoming events.
Stories Across Borders:
A Safe Space for Difficult Conversations
The final design is organic and can be interpreted in many different ways. It speaks to the essential aspects we tackle through Stories Across Borders: stories traveling through sound, transcending borders, ripple effect pouring into communities, and the lack of rigidness—flow.
So far we have hosted a dozen virtual Stories Across Border sessions. Next month (Feb 2025) we will be hosting our first in-person sessions with two chapters: one in Dubai where I am based, and one in London where my co-host Hedvig is based!
After every session we come together to analyze what went well and what could be improved. It’s through this iterative process that we arrived at this stage of creating a short and sweet presentation to help guide us through the introductory section of our sessions.
Stay tuned for photographs of our live events coming soon!
