Artifice is a 501(c)(3) curatorial research organization producing conceptual programs from prototype to artifact.
The working manual: marks, color, type, photography, and where the files are.
Marks and minimum sizes
The lockup is the parent mark. The hexagon stands for WHITEBOX, the asterisk for BLACKBOX. The cursive wordmark is fixed art. No live font matches it, so it is never re-set.
Minimum sizes, shown actual size
Below these the cursive closes up and the hexagon reads as a blob. In print, treat the same numbers as millimeters at 300dpi. Clear space on every side is the height of the hexagon.
Incorrect use
Use the supplied files. The mark is black or white, nothing else. Put it on near-black or on white, never on a mid-tone or over a busy part of a photograph.
WHITEBOX and BLACKBOX
Every Artifice presentation is one or the other. WHITEBOX is the lab, BLACKBOX is the stage. The split is about what an audience is shown, not about medium or venue.
WHITEBOX
Work in development, shown while it is still being made. Rigs stay visible, materials stay labeled, and the maker is usually in the room. Even light, no blackout.
BLACKBOX
Finished work on a schedule. Performance, film and installation, run for an audience that arrives at a set time. Blackout, sound, projection.
A work can move from one to the other between programs. It is filed under whichever format it was presented in, one at a time.
Two grounds, one accent
Carbon and chalk carry almost every surface. Cobalt is the only accent, used for links and focus states, never for emphasis or decoration. The ground is a soft black, never pure #000.
Gray is not a fourth color. Every quiet step below is chalk at reduced opacity on carbon, so the whole page stays in two colors.
Grayscale
Chalk on carbon, stepped down. These are the only grays. Click to copy.
Gradient
Carbon lifted toward gray. Grounds only: the cover plate and the footer. Never behind text.
One typeface: Helvetica Now Display
One family sets everything. Scale and case carry the hierarchy: sentence case for headings and body, uppercase for captions and labels. Never a weight swap to make a heading, never a second family. Redaction appears only where a title is set as display art.
Do
- Change size to change hierarchy.
- Keep lines to 45–75 characters, captions to 30–50.
- Rebreak a line rather than leave one word alone at the end.
Don't
- Set the cursive wordmark in a live font. It is art, not type.
- Add a bold weight to make something look important.
- Introduce a second family for captions or code.
Document the work and the room
Photograph what happened, in the light that was there. These are records first, so the rig, the cabling and the half-built version stay in frame.
Do
- Shoot it as you found it, mess included.
- Use available light; let the blacks stay black.
- Run one image full-bleed rather than three small.
Don't
- Stock photography, or a room staged to look busy.
- Heavy grading, HDR, or pushed saturation.
- Collages that compete with the type on the page.
Chapters, nodes, [ ENTER ]
Three active formats. Same marks, color and type across all three. What changes is who is in the room.
Chapters
Public
A numbered public program of performance and installation. Chapter 006 is in production for winter 2027.
nodes:
Practitioners
Development and demo nights for people building the work. Always lowercase, colon, roman numeral: nodes:ii.
Brackets
- Named platforms and publications: [ ENTER ].
- Named works, exhibitions and episodes.
No brackets
- Generic nouns: artifact, program, chapter.
- The organization's name, or anyone's name.
- WHITEBOX and BLACKBOX. The uppercase already does it.
Describe the work rather than praise it
Write as though the reader knows the field. Name the material, the place, the number. The warmth is in what you noticed, not in adjectives.
We're excited to announce a groundbreaking immersive experience at the intersection of art and technology.
150 practitioners came to ONX in October. Not for a panel. To see work running.
Do
- Lead with the material: koji in a lab, resin priced against rare earths.
- Give the number, the date and the room.
- State it once, plainly, and stop.
Don't
- "Excited to announce," "groundbreaking," exclamation points.
- Short declarations stacked to sound like a manifesto.
- Investor language: "spatial intelligence," "the future of."
- A second metaphor to explain the first.
Production files
Every approved file, black and white. Use SVG wherever it is accepted. PNG is for slide decks and anything that will not take a vector. Do not modify these files. If you need a version that is not here, ask.
| Asset | Black | White |
|---|---|---|
| Horizontal lockup | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| Stacked lockup | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| Wordmark only | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| Marks only | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| WHITEBOX hexagon | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| BLACKBOX asterisk | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| BLACKBOX wordmark | SVGPNG | SVGPNG |
| Program marks | CHAPTERS PNGNODES PNG | n/a |
Helvetica Now Display is licensed per seat. Ask before installing it on a new machine. Redaction is free and open, used only for display titles.