Icograda, Icsid and IFI have revealed a new visual identity for the biennial IDA Congress.

The identity was designed by Pentagram, as an artistic restructuring of Pangaea – a theory of Greek origin meaning “all lands” in support of the idea that at one time, all of the earthʼs continents were once a single landmass. Pentagramʼs solution for a permanent identity is an abstract shape that is composed of the silhouettes of all continents. At small scale, its shape is ambiguous, but enlarged, the geographic details come into view.

Each Congress host, selected on a biennial basis, will be able to customise the identity within a system developed by Pentagram. The strong shape of the new IDA Congress logo provides a visual anchor for key text elements – the host city name, the year and theme – which can incorporate both roman and non-roman alphabets to reflect both the visual and verbal language of the Congress location.

The next IDA Congress will take place from 17 – 19 November 2013 in Istanbul. Head to idacongress.com for more information.

The six inhabited continents were merged and rearranged, resulting in the new IDA Congress logo.