The Office of Rules and Norms (ORN) is an arts-based studio at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Concordia University operating at the intersection of art and policy. The website serves as a hub to distribute and archive the work of creative researchers, academics, professionals, and artists alike. The logo, branding and website is designed in collaboration with Sevan Belleau.

The Office of Rules and Norms is concerned with ideas of subverting laws and regulations. So, for the branding, we decided to appropriate the visual language of the urban landscape, using city markers to play with as a tool of an existing system. Arrows are a key element in the design system we created for the ORN, as they may might be in a construction zone for instance. However, the arrows are directionless to disrupt the way we may typically think and behave around an arrow for example.

We also created a unique way finding system for this website. Every page on the website is represented as a file or window like you might find on a desktop. Every page is represented by a colour bar on top that includes a page title, unique colour, and an ‘X’ button to close.

Once a new page opens, the top bar from the previous page stacks on top of the new one.That happens every time a new page is opened, creating a visible history as you navigate through the site. We created this wayfinding system so that while you are on the website, you can easily refer back to a previous page you were on and quickly go back and forth between them. It became an interesting tool for becoming conscious of your journey as you are moving through the website. The website can be viewed at www.orn.studio.