07Design for research
Epistemology of the Divine
Identity for a DFG research group
As an associate researcher of EpOD, a research group of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany, and the FWF (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung), Austria, based in Bonn, Leipzig, Wuppertal and Vienna, I was invited to create the group’s visual identity.
The group studies the history of ideas in ancient Israel: how the divine was conceived, remembered, documented and disseminated. Biblical and extra-biblical texts and the material culture of the southern Levant in the first millennium BCE are read for the thought structures (Denkstrukturen) behind knowledge of the divine.
The project has four subprojects, on emerging monotheism (Jan Dietrich, Bonn), God’s knowability (Annette Schellenberg-Lagler, Vienna), seals as mass media (Thomas Wagner, Wuppertal), and sanctuaries and their networks (Angelika Berlejung, Leipzig).
What I did
An acronym in one line
The logo was crafted from the shape of the letters alone (lettering). The “o” and the “d” merge in a quasi-infinite loop, which echoes the graphism of the background painting, the work of an artist in the group, and points, conceptually, to the long duration expected of concepts of the divine. Colour and application follow the painting. The quasi-infinite becomes a graphic element for other contexts, such as the template.
Two colours and a pattern
Yellow and brown, matched to the painting, which becomes a dotted background pattern for the logo, covers and dividers.
One template for four sites
Cover, chapter divider, text page, quotation and image page, with the logos of the four institutions at the top and the presenter’s name in the footer.
Skills
The same skills in other cases
