PartWiss

Visual Identity

Client University of Technology Chemnitz
Role Corporate design, key visual and illustrations
Technique Digital illustrations

PartWiss – Participation in Science is a multi year research initiative that brings together academics from various disciplines to exchange perspectives on participation in scientific research. The project fosters a critical discourse on how science can become more open, inclusive, and democratically engaged.

Corporate Design

Logo and Website

The visual identity builds on the foundation I created in the project’s early phase, where I designed the logo, the initial website, and a distinctive illustration style tailored to an academic audience. My role involved developing visual narratives that reflect the complexity and richness of participatory research.

Since 2024, I have been collaborating with designer Martin Hahn to further develop the visual identity of PartWiss, with a focus on its expanded online presence and communication for large-scale academic conferences. Together, we refined the design system to ensure clarity, scalability, and consistency across digital and print formats.

The PartWiss Staff

Illustrations

It is big fun creating a cast of recurring, hand-drawn characters—scientists and citizens alike—that appear across various illustrations. They include a female leader team, curious kids and engaged neighbors, old and young.

Alongside them, symbolic figures like a robot (representing order) and cat (symbolizing chaos—or occasionally the reverse) create humorous and thought-provoking moments.

Graphic Recording

Keynote by Dr. Teun Zuiderent-Jerak

This graphic recording was created during a keynote at the 2024 PartWiss Conference. The talk explored how guidelines in health research are shaped through participatory processes—using the example of developing a research protocol on scabies. My visual summary translated the complex intersections of evidence, ethics, and public engagement into an accessible and humorous visual narrative. The result offers a quick entry point for reflection and discussion, capturing the essence of the presentation in real time.

A Guide for participation in science

A key component of the design is the PartWiss Guide: a boxed card set used in workshops and academic contexts. I was responsible for the design concept, layout, and packaging, as well as the illustrations representing different participatory approaches in research.

The PartWiss guide is intended for anyone involved in participatory projects—whether in research, practice, or at the intersection of both. Its goal is to inspire and support you on your journey, offer practical assistance, and, in particular, provide orientation amidst the diversity of participatory approaches and terminology.

A joint project

PartWiss is a joint project of Chemnitz University of Technology, Center for Responsible Research and Innovation, Fraunhofer IAO, Technische Universität Berlin, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. Gesellschaft für transdisziplinäre und partizipative Forschung e.V. and mit:forschen! are associated partners of the project which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).