What do you see when you reframe?
It’s an understatement that these are challenging times, and most days these feeds feel like emotional whiplash. Yet offline, in intimate conversations, organizations, and communities, we’re seeing a reframing of the future.
As designers, strategists, and students of nature, we watch for ideas that are taking root, especially when it is endemic wisdom resurfacing from structural cracks. One of the most powerful ideas is mutualism.
Mutualism is greater than authoritarianism. Collective growth is greater than monoculture. “We” is greater than “I”.
Mutualism asks:
* What do you need?
* What do we need together?
* How can we be there for each other?
The future doesn’t exist yet. It starts every day. Local, relational bonds form the true basis of a community economy and a functioning society.
Initiating the reframe is as simple as potlucks, brainstorms, and listening to your communities.
NEW WORK // The site for multi-brand furniture showroom @theancillaryproject began as all good projects do: with listening.
Round-table discussions with interior designers revealed the specific needs of workplace and hospitality projects, providing a foundation for the site’s requirements and a compass for our design.
As AI leans into UX, we believe listening sessions are what will keep the digital experience—and design itself—human-centered.
Discover more at theancillaryproject.com
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logo design by @JadaVogt
site design by @tanyaquick@jadavogt + @jennapark development by @codezone_
NEW WORK // Brand evolution for @TheAncillaryProject
After three years as CSUITE, founders Kedra Cornelske and Perrin Siegel returned to Language Dept. for a new identity that reflects their evolution as a resource dedicated entirely to workplace and hospitality environments.
Inspired by architecture, sculpture, and furniture, and built upon underlying letterforms, the new brand strikes a balance between creativity, function, and inspiration.
What remains constant is the company’s commitment to partnership, their belief in design as a conversation, shared love of beautifully made, purpose-driven furniture, and the personal, attentive support customers trust them for.
See more at theancillaryproject.com
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Identity design by @JadaVogt
site design by @tanyaquick@jadavogt + @jennapark
📸: @olivkh
Congratulations to our long-time client @andreahazen for being named one of the Top 145 Art World Professionals by @ARTNews !
Art and community adds depth and joy to our lives, something we need now more than ever. :: custom match books designed by @jadavogt / @languagedept , produced by @ohwhatamatch photo by @jadavogt
NEW WORK// Brand definition and community-building launch for Bloom Farm, a sanctuary for self-exploration, continued education, and collective well-being.
Bloom Farm lies at the intersection of land stewardship, food systems, and human wellness, reconnecting the health of land and people through a regenerative approach that is long-ranged and community-first.
The brand system marks time and cycles through the seasonal colors of nature paired with photography and drawings harvested from slowing down and paying attention. The digital landscape—website, event flyers, and monthly dispatches—is designed to invite an interconnected community to the long-term vision of agroforestry through daily moments experienced on the farm.
Visit bloomfarm.com, or follow along @visitbloomfarm
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Design: @tanyaquick + @jadavogt
Copywriting: @tanyaquick , @jenn_tardif , s.nanasinkam, @lizzywholley
Photos: @olivkh + @sarahwagnermiller Illustrations: @yoga.bryan.hogan
NEW WORK// Brand design extension for New York | Paris | Chicago -based art advisor @andreahazen
Hazen Art Advisory lies at the intersection of the art and interior design worlds, where artworks move from white-walled galleries into textured homes and public spaces that reflect the story of the end client.
The brand system is tactile, personal, immersive, and elegant—designed to establish critical trust from clients, designers, gallerists, and artists while reflecting the ways that creativity enriches life.
The new site is now live at hazenadvisory.com.
What’s your ecotone?
In nature, an ecotone is an area where two biological communities meet and integrate. There’s a richness in these areas—like marshlands between dry and wet ecosystems, and estuaries between saltwater and freshwater. Ecotones are home to elements from both worlds as well as things that only live there. They are magnetically alive experiences.
In our work, we’ve seen similar fertile ground to create distinctive brand systems by exploring where business communities intersect. Finding your ecotone is a shift in thinking that expands beyond the idea of clear space—to a stewarded world of interconnected abundance.
More than a logo, each brand system encompasses how the elements communicate and the natural cadence of its cycles. Our work is to identify, translate, and express those systems.
How can change be regenerative?
Beneath any visible growth lies a network of invisible support that determines the health and longevity of what springs into view. Like soil in nature, that support is the bridge between what is past and what is to come.
When the landscape is changing and it’s time to pivot:
- How can you return what you extract?
- Where is the flow of information or engagement blocked?
- How will you steward the future?
Change is constant and cyclical. By acknowledging the richness that exists, listening to collective knowledge, and adapting for a changing future, organizations can strengthen internal and external relationships from the bottom up—as you move from what once was to what can be.
We attended @nytimes Climate Forward talks to hear what those with power and scale are doing at the end of a summer where weather extremes tested people and systems everywhere.
As shared by a broad range of thought leaders, businesses are integrating regenerative agriculture, clean energy, and carbon drawdown in ways that will create sustainable opportunities across sectors. Amid inevitable greenwashing, there was deep discussion about the intersection of needed transitions with broken promises to communities most impacted.
But the fractures in democracy and capitalism are showing globally. As crises accelerate, the need to shift paradigms expands across party lines, global borders, and economies. Listening and creating a shared language at speed has never been more critical.
What conversations and actions can we initiate at work, at home, and in your communities?
There is a new world coming, and it will be led by those who feel the climate crisis the most: Gen Z and Gen Alpha. It’s not their job alone.
At the @anthemawards panel on The Future of Climate Activism, the CEO of @dosomething spoke about the anxiety of young people, and why they won’t wait. They are digitally connected to levers and will hold a company and leaders accountable for promises. And in 2024, 17M will be new voters in the U.S.
From our ongoing work with @malalafund and @on.assembly , we know that by 2025 climate change will be a contributing factor in preventing at least 12.5 million girls from completing their education each year. This loss is unacceptable.
Change takes time and a majority. Each generation needs to push, pull, and learn from each other. In the words of activist & artist Rebecca Gates: Stitch the warriors and dreamers into the same space.
One of the highlights of #climateweek was a live reading by author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer titled “The Turtle Mothers Have Come Ashore to Ask About an Unpaid Debt.”
When anxiety strikes, humans turn to stories. Writers compel us to think beyond our personal perspective and give us language for what we’re feeling. Kimmerer reminds us that our lives are not—and have never been—separate from the health of the Earth.
“We need more than policy change; we need a change in worldview, from the fiction of human exceptionalism to the reality of our kinship and reciprocity with the living world. The Earth asks that we renounce a culture of endless taking so that the world can continue.”
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Full text, and link to video, was published on the 9/22 Opinion page of the @nytimes
