FORWARD Festival Frankfurt: Nina Reininger on Branding the WDC 2026
Talk
How do you develop a flexible design and campaign system that invites an entire region to co-create? At the FORWARD Festival Frankfurt, Nina Reininger (Strategy Lead, Stan Hema) and Jonas Deuter (Art Director, WDC 2026) shared insights into the brand identity of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026.
This year, the renowned FORWARD Festival celebrated its Frankfurt premiere as part of the official program of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026. Guided by the core theme "Design for Democracy," the festival explored how creative design can foster democratic participation, social cohesion, and urban transformation.
As a strategic partner, Stan Hema has supported the World Design Capital 2026 from the very beginning, leading the brand development, corporate design, and the campaign system.
On stage, Nina Reininger and Jonas Deuter unpacked how the design system has grown organically from the initial bid. Instead of rigid guidelines, the brand identity relies on a participatory ecosystem. It is designed to be highly adaptive, allowing a wide range of local stakeholders to use, modify, and actively shape the visual assets across more than 2,000 planned projects and events.
Our conclusion: A brand identity in public spaces thrives when it relinquishes control and sparks joy in shaping a region's future together. We would like to thank the FORWARD Festival and WDC 2026 teams for the inspiring dialogue and the fantastic collaboration!
