Places We Belong

Places We Belong is a year long, community led research project exploring ideas of home, belonging, and connection through conversation and shared experience. It emerged from informal exchanges and personal reflection around what “home” means, and how that meaning shifts across time, places, and relationships, with the shared insight that home is rarely just one thing.

A key moment within the project was a hosted event designed as a calm, inclusive space for intimate dialogue. Participants were invited into guided conversations around themes such as leaving home and returning home, shaped by feelings of familiarity, safety, memory, and belonging. Conversation prompts provided light structure while leaving space for participants to shape discussions through their own stories and reflections.

The brand identity builds on these themes of fragmentation and connection. A dotted typographic system reflects dispersed experiences coming together and extends into printed materials including event flyers, curated home chat menus with conversation prompts, and postcards to home encouraging reflection beyond the event.

Places We Belong demonstrates how design can operate as facilitation, shaping the conditions for exchange, reflection, and community building. Developed without initial funding, this phase marked only the beginning, with next steps focused on securing funding to continue community led research and develop a final outcome that carries these conversations forward.