Pollinator
Virtual residency of mutual support
Pollinator is a peer learning program for alumni of art programs and residencies. It matches participants at similar career stages and places them in advisory pods of six to support professional development and interdisciplinary collaboration. Its network includes over 400 programs such as RISD, Skowhegan, MacDowell, UCLA Design | Media Arts, and Pioneer Works.
The identity gives form to the pod: a small, purposeful space for creative development to continue.
Context
Pollinator came to Topos as a new organization seeking a visual language. The project arrived through a direct connection — co-director Caroline Woolard studied at Cooper Union alongside Seth Labenz and Roy Rub. The challenge was to build an identity that could hold two ideas at once: the rigor of a vetted network — one that selects carefully and places intentionally — and the warmth of genuine belonging among peers.
The organizing structure of the program, the pod, became the generative unit of the visual system.
Brand Identity Elements
The wordmark begins with a decision about space. In “Pollinator,” the double “l” opens — an intentional gap that makes visible what the program does: it creates space for a purposefully assembled group. Throughout the identity, dots appear as a recurring element, most often as a pod of six. The “i” and “r” in the wordmark formally echo the dots.
We selected The Future for primary typography. This typeface is an homage to Paul Renner’s Futura. Futura, which was first released in 1927, has become a symbol of Modernism’s idealism and optimism. The Future returns to Futura’s original drawings, reviving its alternate letterforms and avant-garde experimental spirit. The fit with Pollinator’s own idealism is natural.
The primary palette — light yellow, mid green, and dark green — is anchored in nature, a direct reference to the name. The secondary palette extends this through a different logic: any six colors that, when overlapped and multiplied, produce the dark green. These six colors appear throughout the identity as a cluster of dots, activating compositions and encoding a subtle metaphor: six distinct parts, combined, make the whole.
In Use
How It Works video animated by Brian Anderson.
