I’ve been writing about design for almost two decades now, and I’ve been to a serious number of creative conferences. And it’s always interesting to check out their visual identities.
Firstly because they tend to be refreshed year-on-year, and secondly because we’re generally talking about people at the top of their industry, who both know what they’re doing and are keen to impress their peers.
For that reason, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a bad conference identity. But inevitably, some are going to be better than others. And here’s one that really hit all the right notes for me (for others, see our list of the best rebrands).
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But first, some context. World Design Congress (WDC) is a global event run by the World Design Organization (WDO), an international non-governmental body that promotes the profession of industrial design.
Launched in 1959, it takes place in a different host city every two years, and the last one took place at the Barbican in London in 2025. The next, the 35th edition, will take place in Seoul, South Korea, from 22–25 September 2027. Its visual identity has just been released, and is in full effect on the World Design Congress website. And, well, it’s quite a sight.
Clashing colours, scattered shapes, a logo that looks like a seesaw mid-wobble, all brought to life by motion graphics. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a fun ‘n’ funky startup, not a prestigious body like the WDC.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. In fact, I think they’ve actually nailed it. And that’s especially pleasing in an era in which design festival mainly plays it safe. One typeface. One colour. A logo that could belong to a bank just as much as festival. I don’t wish to name names, but we’ve all seen branding like this, right?
In contrast, for WDC 2027, Seoul studio Everyday Practice has gone in a very different direction. It’s loud, chaotic and, frankly, a bit weird.
Which is very pleasing, because an organisation like WDO, marking its 70th anniversary, could have rested on its laurels and gone for something familiar and safe. And at a time when so much design feels focus-grouped into sameness, that feels like a risk, albeit it one that’s paid for.
Underlying concept
It’s not just different for different’s sake, though: this is an identity built on something deep and real. Everyday Practice has taken the idea of Seoul as a city of contrasts – ancient palaces next to glass towers, humble villages a few streets from neon-soaked nightlife – and built that tension into the DNA of the identity.
The seven-colour palette does a real job, too. Green is for the city’s parks, blue for the Han River, orange for its sunsets, magenta for its nights out. It all works together visually, subtly reflecting the idea of a city where different ideas can sit side by side without being in conflict.
I think the key takeaway here is that “bold and different” doesn’t have to mean reckless or chaotic. Everyday Practice hasn’t just thrown together clashing shapes and hoped for the best. Every colour ties back to something specific about Seoul, and the generative, scattering system behind the mark gives it a logic that holds up across the applications shown, the pastel-poster homepage, the greyscale variant, the bright orange one.
That’s the discipline underneath what looks like chaos, and it’s what stops this being a gimmick. And overall, this branding stands as proof that a reasoned, well-constructed piece of maximalism can still get approved by a serious institutional client; not despite being loud, but because the loudness is actually doing the work.
Estudio EA