Once I first noticed the stone typography for Worldwide Meeting‘s 2025 identification, I needed to look twice. These large, pockmarked letterforms seem like historic ruins, all cratered surfaces and eroded edges. The letters push proper up in opposition to abstraction, dissolving into sculptural types. And let’s be trustworthy: ‘readability’ has not been the highest precedence right here.
NAM (aka Nam Huynh and Mark Bohle) and Warriors Studio have created one thing genuinely thought-provoking right here. This identification makes use of barely readable stone typography as its central factor, pairing it with crisp subtitles in Neue Haas Grotesk, which sit neatly beneath. It is playful, barely absurd, and utterly thought of.
Operate is not what you assume it’s
This is the factor that makes this work so effectively for a design competition. We spend our total careers being informed what “useful” design appears to be like like: street indicators, tutorial diagrams, reductive symbols, minimalism. However what occurs when the perform of your design is to excite folks and intrigue them? When your job is to make creatives cease and assume?
And that is the place this identification will get intelligent. For an viewers of designers attending a competition, creating one thing unfamiliar and boundary-pushing is definitely extra profitable as “useful” design than taking part in it secure. You have obtained license to query conventions once you’re chatting with your friends.
Observe, too, that the stone types themselves are correctly crafted. This is not only a texture slapped onto some letters. NAM began by laying out typography in 2D, then extruded it into 3D meshes, and imported the whole lot into VR. They then used a digital ice-cream scoop to carve out every letter by hand. You may see the handmade high quality within the irregular surfaces and the best way gentle catches the carved-out sections. It is digital craft at its greatest.
Why subtitles change the whole lot
The subtitle system, in the meantime, is what transforms this from an experiment right into a working identification. The clear traces of Neue Haas Grotesk, positioned beneath the closely textured stone headlines, create a pressure that propels the entire design ahead.
To my thoughts, this pressure between opacity and readability neatly mirrors the place design sits immediately. We’re consistently negotiating between pushing boundaries and making issues work; between experimentation and readability; between what we need to do and what we have to do.
NAM additionally introduced in FK Raster by Florian Karsten, which they describe as including “some crunchy popcorn style” alongside the heavy stone and clear Grotesk. It is a good third voice that stops the two-font system from feeling too binary.
The cinematic reference issues too. Movie subtitles create precisely this type of pressure; experimentation sits proper subsequent to performance. That magical feeling of watching one thing unfold in a darkened cinema connects completely to the competition expertise. Every little thing sits on wealthy black backgrounds, creating a way of anticipation and ready for one thing particular to start.
What designers can be taught from this
The plain takeaway from this challenge is “push the boundaries for artistic audiences”. However there’s additionally a broader lesson right here: that performance shifts relying on what you are truly making an attempt to realize. And typically questioning conventions serves your objective higher than following them.
When you’re designing for a competition talking on to designers, you have obtained permission to push additional than you’ll for different contexts. The viewers is completely different. Their expectations are completely different. What counts as “working” is completely different. Warriors and NAM wished to make use of the competition as a platform to query their every day actions and critique expectations round performance.
This does not imply, after all, that hardly readable typography is instantly applicable in every single place. It means considering tougher about what your design truly must do.
If it must excite and intrigue slightly than merely inform, if it is chatting with an viewers who values being challenged, then possibly that daring, textured remedy is definitely essentially the most useful alternative you might make.
Why it labored
The collaboration between NAM and Warriors labored so effectively, partly due to their shared historical past. They’ve exhibited collectively, run workshops collectively, and travelled collectively. NAM has been visiting the competition for years, absorbing its environment. That deep understanding of the occasion’s power meant they may seize one thing genuine. Warriors describe it as NAM bringing out “the power and vibe of the competition higher than we ever may”.
The result’s an identification that questions conventions whereas nonetheless doing its job brilliantly.
Data stays utterly accessible via the subtitle system. The stone typography creates impression and memorability. The summary symbols (a globe for worldwide scope, coordinate techniques for design’s place in society) add conceptual depth. Even the web page numbers within the Worldwide Poster Guide be part of the parade, marching from nook to nook throughout 260 pages, increasing and contracting like respiratory creatures.
It is a reminder that critique and performance can coexist. Which you can push boundaries and nonetheless talk clearly. And most significantly, that “useful” design is not one factor – it is no matter efficiently achieves your precise objective.
And the occasion itself? Worldwide Meeting runs from 6–21 November 2025 in Glasgow. The convention itself occurs on at some point within the Royal Live performance Corridor – doorways open at 8am, and talks run from 9:30 am to 6pm. There will not be any recordings, by the best way, so you have to be there. Given this identification’s emphasis on expertise and questioning, this feels solely applicable. Some issues demand your full consideration.
