826 National is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping students, ages 6 to 18 years, improve their expository and creative writing skills at seven locations across the United States. These chapters utilize playful storefronts to aquire the resources necessary to provide high-level education to children from under-resourced families.

Common Ground 826 is a proposed identity for a coffee shop in Ann Arbor, MI. The visual identity supports the cultivation of a warm and welcoming space for community members to discuss topics, both serious and light-hearted, related to their community and society at large.

The colored squares change relationship and move around in the compositions, but always play off each other for a solution that works in the given space; inspired by the ideal of constructive dialogue in a diverse and changing environment. Illustrations are used in the system, because of their historical value of conveying ideas to those who speak different languages. Hands then become the model of human expression in conversation.