Common Space Studio

On April 13, Eliza Swann @thecircularserpent will present as part of Polymorphic Practice, with Jon Santos introducing a framework that situates this work within a broader approach to practice as structure. Through Ontopo, Santos has developed methods for giving form to what is not immediately visible, translating diffuse or experiential conditions into systems that can be engaged and shared. The session expands beyond this moment to consider how practices take shape through these kinds of transformations.

If practice is shaped by systems, then practice can’t be understood in isolation. We’ll be gathering again in mid-April to continue developing this line of thinking through the Polymorphic Practice cohort.

This is the outcome of our last Polymorphic Practice session, where I brought together a cohort of artists, researchers, strategists, and organizers to think through how systems shape contemporary practice. What emerged for me was that systems thinking is not just a subject to represent, it is also a way of working: tracing interdependence, understanding how language moves institutions, and recognizing that practice can operate across forms while staying structurally coherent.

What happens when a heritage brand pays it forward? Magnolia Ice Cream joined our design cohort, The First Course, and asked a simple question: Can we help someone else who needs design work? That gesture supported a new logo for an extremely talented startup baker in Honolulu who wanted new branding but couldn’t afford it. Lovejoy, a cookie company built on memory, generosity, and innovative recipes and technique. The First Course isn’t just a branding program. It’s a way for emerging food founders to access high-level design, often with the support of those who’ve come before them. This is the kind of creative economy we believe in. 📍Cohort 02 begins this Thursday at noon. [Link in bio] to apply.

Arrival is a system for slowing down. Designed by Common Space Studio, the identity for Arrival Art Fair resists the spectacle of the global art market in favor of something quieter and more intentional. Hosted at TOURISTS in the Berkshires, the fair is built around hospitality and context. Its timing aligns with the seasonal return of a specific cultural cohort: museum curators, directors, writers, and scholars, many of whom studied at nearby Williams College. It functions almost like a reunion, drawing together those who shape institutions across the country. The name Arrival captures the shift from elsewhere into presence. Its visual language draws from the aesthetics of travel—luggage tags, departure boards, and wayfinding systems—but distills them into a softer, more atmospheric grammar. The stacked lettermark is both symbol and signal. It suggests motion, orientation, and recognition, something you feel before you read. Paired with a monospace typeface, the identity balances expressive form with quiet infrastructure. This is branding as spatial language. Less about marking territory, more about helping you land somewhere slower, softer, and far from the city.

For somewhat of a design competition / camping trip, we made a houndstooth dog tent. Modular, collapsible, screenprinted, and extremely photogenic, it was prototyped for a @taavosomer camping weekend. The tent was assembled on site, tested by a very stoic boxer named Louie, and rolled up at the end of the weekend by none other than @anickayi_studio , who showed up and instinctively understood what needed to be done. Our collaborator Matt Penrose @penroma , who helped engineer the biodegradable plastic fabrication and brought an industrial precision to an otherwise highly improvisational build. Picked up by @casavoguebrasil and @dwellmagazine , this small structure had an outsized afterlife (like our hero, Louie - to honor him!) A reminder that even the most casual objects can hold the memory of a scene, a season, or a brief alignment of creative minds in the woods.

New York’s downtown scene is a physical phenomenon. @mayaontheinternet recently shattered the idea that IRL and online are two different spaces. Is Dimes Square the true downtown vortex or is it Canal Street? Does it matter? Much of the city’s cultural production was physically concentrated below 14th Street. Proximity wasn’t a brand strategy.. it was architectural, logistical, unavoidable. Today, we’re more connected than ever through, yet the conditions that once enabled spontaneous collisions have largely disappeared. Let’s meet at @timeagainbar and talk about it.. Geography has been replaced by interface, and with it, a certain kind of generative friction has been lost. In @j0nsant0s interview with James Fuentes for Office Magazine @officemagazinenyc , the two reflect on the city’s shifting cultural landscape and the forces that shaped Fuentes’s gallery program. While his program has remained focused on contemporary art, it emerged from a moment when scenes overlapped, infrastructure was shared, and the city itself did some of the curatorial work. Common Space was formed in that same ecology but has always looked toward the interstices where design, performance, and curatorial thinking blur. Today, as creative life becomes more fragmented (spatially and socially) we remain committed to creating conditions for meaningful convergence. Because in a city where running into someone is no longer a given, those intersections have to be designed Read the full interview 
officemagazine.net/interview/all-part-show

Rancho Arroyo Grande is a vineyard perched high in the hills of San Luis Obispo County, but its story begins beneath the sea. This land was once ocean floor. You can still find shell imprints embedded in the rocks scattered throughout the property. The soil is silt and seabed, wind-carved and salt-kissed. This isn't metaphor. It's what the grapes grow from. The new identity is a response to that history. The mark was designed to reflect both geological memory and fluidity. Topographic rings recall shifting plates and sediment layers. A central axis hints at balance, tide, and transformation. But the work here goes far beyond wine. There is a nonprofit cultural center in development, a future recording studio, and a long-term vision for the site as a gathering place for artists, ecologists, and community-based experiments. These intentions don't live on the surface of the label. They're part of the deeper structure. In that sense, this is not just a vineyard brand. It's a framework for a layered and evolving place. One that contains multiple trajectories at once. A multiverse, rooted in land and memory. Design and creative direction by @commonspaced for @rancho.arroyo.grande.vineyards

For our Frieze New York campaign, we developed a visual language that responds to the sharp materiality of Hudson Yards. A new neighborhood whose architecture feels more aligned with global luxury than with New York’s historical textures. Conceived, art directed, and produced by our studio, the campaign was designed to make Frieze feel more rooted in the specific character of each host city. In New York, that meant staging a performance where the figure is doubled—not in perfect symmetry, but in tension with itself. One self slipping, the other reaching. A choreography of dissonance that mirrors the contradictions of a neighborhood suspended between aspiration and alienation. Amid the coolness of steel and mirrored glass, we leaned into neutral tones and soft gestures that speak to something deeply local: endurance, disorientation, and the quiet effort to belong. Frieze New York 2025 Campaign Direction and Execution Direction: Jon Santos @j0nsant0s Photography: Aliya Naumoff @aliyanaumoff Models: Juri Onuki (Model 1) @jurionuki Nana Tsuda (Model 2) @nicon7z   Self-styled by Juri Onuki and Nana Tsuda Model Agent: Box Artist Management @boxartistmanagement Production Assistance: Jessie Gong Design: Jarin Moriguchi @coldnvile Post Production: Common Space Lighting and Grip: Danny Ballester Hair and Makeup: Claudia Lake @claudialakemakeup Hair and Makeup Assistance: Bibb Joel Dickey III @whosbibb Clothing: WenJue Lu @wenjuelu

Throwback to 2013: We designed this label for Agella Zinfandel at Common Space as a tribute to both old-world exploration and new-world craft. The stylized ship—fragmented yet elegant—symbolizes a journey through bold flavor, rooted in Sonoma County’s rich terroir. We wanted the identity to feel timeless but unexpected, with restrained colors and typographic quirks that nod to both tradition and reinvention.

Cover art we designed for @anickayi_studio c/o @artinamerica ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We have been collaborating with Anicka Yi studio on a number creative of projects across media. Recently we’ve launched @stopdiscrminasian and have a few interesting things on the horizon, including her new fragrance line Biography, a series of scents that challenge traditional notions of femininity and subjectivity. For more information about Biography, follow @biography_fragrance or visit biographyfragrance.com

We created a new visual identity for @maharosenyc that positions their pioneering work as NYC's center for healing and transformation. Maha Rose South is their retreat center on the coast of Oaxaca, in Mazunte, Mexico. In addition to designing the online brand, we collaborated on a series of retargeted ad campaigns. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ They finished up an incredible season of retreats just before COVID hit and we want to savor this moment and appreciate the time spent together, in real life.. In this beautiful setting. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ — ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Find out more → ‪commonspacestudio.com ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #brandidentity #logos #graphicdesign #logotype #graphicdesigner #brandingagency #logoinspirations #brandidentitydesign #logo #branding #brandingdesign #brandingeugene #brandinginspiration #brandingtips #branding101 #designinspiration #webdesign #commonspacedstudio #commonersspace