Studio fnt rebuilt Kiaf's identity for its 20th year from the fair's own letterforms

Capture the reputation Kiaf had established as Korea's representative contemporary art platform while pointing at a younger, more flexible future.

The logo is cut from typeface MD Nichrome with the K and f significantly altered, set mostly in all caps. The abstracted letterform patterns appear across branding, editorial design, posters and the exhibition space itself.

No quantitative results. The identity carried Kiaf's 20th-anniversary edition in October 2021 across branding and editorial, from posters to the fair's exhibition spaces.

The Korea International Art Fair celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2021 with a new identity designed by Seoul-based Studio fnt, tasked with capturing Kiaf's established reputation as Korea's representative contemporary art platform while portraying a younger, more flexible direction.

The system leans on geometric patterns abstracted from the letters 'Kiaf' — visible on posters throughout the exhibition space — and on the typeface MD Nichrome, set mostly in all caps. The logo modifies the same typeface, with the K and f significantly altered, and across the identity a circular uppercase O replaces the oval digit 0.

The branding and editorial design carried the fair's October 2021 edition, and the studio documented the system as a case study on its own site.

The identity is generative: abstracting K-I-A-F into geometric patterns gives the fair an endless, consistent visual supply.

The O-for-0 swap is a small typographic in-joke that makes every date in the system feel designed.

Building the logo from the same typeface as the editorial keeps the whole system in one voice.

An identity system can grow out of its own name: abstract the letterforms into patterns and the brand becomes a pattern library, not one locked logo.

The identity served Kiaf's 20th-anniversary edition in October 2021; Fonts In Use documented the system in 2022, crediting Studio fnt's case study.