Schwarm #4 is a student publication featuring artistic and academic contributions from various departments at the HfG Karlsruhe that explore the concept of “Realities.” For the three-person design team, the project offered the opportunity to collaboratively develop a visual identity and implement it in the design. The focus was on creating a graphic language that does justice to the contributions while also providing an accessible framework for engaging with the works. Instead of a traditional theory book, the result is a format that invites discovery and conveys theoretical content in a more accessible way—the design itself thus becomes part of the theme “Realities.”

To achieve this, numerous design details meshed together like gears. For example, the team created a subtle tension in the layout by placing text blocks of varying lengths on the left and right pages, slightly offset from one another—an effect that is amplified by the paper’s translucency in the printed book and conveys the impression that every page, every reality, is different. To balance this, both page numbers were placed together on a single page. Since not every contribution was suited to a traditional academic presentation, the team developed different design concepts: The deliberate alternation between typesetting styles and layout structures—from justified to ragged-right—allows each contribution to stand out in its own way while still uniting them into a typographically cohesive whole.

For the team, Schwarm is not an ending but a beginning: Under the name “Studio L”, Till Engelhardt, Tizian Repp, and Dshamilja Tükerek intend to continue their collaboration, provide a platform for young artists and theorists, and foster interdisciplinary exchange through both self-initiated and commissioned publications. They plan to produce both self-initiated publications and commissioned projects that foster dialogue between different disciplines and communities.