Marmara Urban Forum (MARUF) is Türkiye's first national urban forum. It is a biennial international urban forum organized by Marmara Municipalities Union.
Briefly, we created conceptual design, environment design and applications, social media concept designs, merch products. Huh! It took too long to even count.
Challange
Evolution of Identity
MARUF’s 2025 theme is inspired by a line from Turkish poet Turgut Uyar: “On the shore of all possibilities.”
While preserving the brand’s core color palette and graphic forms, we needed to develop a design system that was both aligned with the theme and sustainable over time. It had to be distinct from our widely appreciated 2023 concept — yet just as compelling in its own way.
Solution
Embroidered Floss
The theme focuses on possibilities and potential encounters. Building on this idea, we evolved MARUF’s existing visual assets into embroidered elements. Each piece was redesigned to seamlessly connect with another, whether its own variation or a different design altogether, allowing for endless combinations.
This approach enabled us to create non-repetitive, evolving, yet internally consistent graphic surfaces. Alongside the key visual, it also allowed for greater variety across venue banners and wayfindings, ensuring a flexible and dynamic visual language throughout the event.
The Venue and Printed Materials
MARUF 2025 took place at the Haliç Congress Center, located along the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul. For a forum spread across such a large venue, we designed a wide range of materials — including wayfinding systems, maps, layouts, and complementary visual materials. We also created animations for the LED screens on the main stage, ensuring visual continuity throughout the event experience.
The event team defined each major area as a hub, and the use of color was planned accordingly. This approach helped structure the space, improve orientation, and create a clear yet cohesive visual hierarchy across the venue.
Social Media
We prepared the concept designs for MARUF’s social media channels and delivered them to the social media agency together with a complete design system. Our goal was to create a consistent yet non-repetitive visual flow, allowing the content to feel cohesive without becoming monotonous.
MARUF Market and Merchs
On the shore of all merch.
MARUF Market once again opened its doors during the forum. Inspired by this year’s theme, we designed a series of urban focused items including tote bags, notebooks, and tshirts. All products sold out during the event. Once again, we hope this experimental popup market evolves into the official market of Marmara Municipalities Union and MARUF in the years to come.
