A City of Design must always open itself up to external influences in order to create room for something new. Therefore, for a city it is necessary to take a stance and show it’s colours. But which flag do you want to choose to represent yourself? This question was at the beginning of the development for the visual identity of the Designmonat Graz 2018.

The Designmonat invites to a diverse programme of exhibitions, lectures and workshops, and thus makes the domestic creative industry visible to the public. With more than 100,000 visitors it promotes regional, national and international networking and manifests Graz as a City of Design.

How much tolerance does design need? This question and its relevance for successful design marked the central topic of the festival in 2018.

The issue of tolerance was not only discussed under the viewpoint of design, it also forms the questions and demands for an open society.

Here not only creative escalation was at the focus of the debate. Questions concerning the tolerance of an open society, which threatened to collapse when confronted with the high number of refugees arriving in 2015/16, were also posed.

Therefore, there is no flag which can represent a city in all its facets. It is always about crossing borders, breaking down norms and aspiring to create something new.

This idea is reflected in the dynamic identity created for the Designmonat Graz, which is composed out of the most frequently used forms and colours of all 195 state flags. These elements enter into relationships with each other, they displace and deform themselves, and thus make room for something new. The result is a flexible design system that is constantly renewing itself. Each design is only a brief snapshot in the ever-changing stream of flags.

The Designmonat magazine also picks up the question of tolerance on an additional level. While breaking out of the regular grid system and deliberately bending typographical rules it poses the question to the reader: How much tolerance does design need?