Asia Art Archive (AAA) is an independent, non-profit institution dedicated to documenting contemporary art in Asia. Based in Hong Kong, and with branches in numerous countries throughout Asia and North America, it holds over 70,000 digital and physical records of art, writing, photography and performance; exploring, preserving and interrogating contemporary Asian artistic practice within an international context.
Our identity for the Archive celebrates the interconnectivity of AAA’s activities, and the visual language of archiving. We developed a system of lines which connect words and create diagrams across multiple languages. The system also incorporates a bespoke typeface which we designed. The typeface is characterised by its exaggerated ink traps – a feature typical of typefaces used at a small size within an archive or index to aid clarity and legibility. This is paired with Source Han Sans, a Pan-Asian typeface that accommodates the vast number of languages and alphabets which AAA uses alongside English.
The sharp shapes of these ink traps can also be seen as a reversal of the calligraphic line-endings found in many Asian character-forms.
