We are pleased to launch the media kit for International Archives Week 2026. This space brings together everything you need to promote #ArchivesForJustice across your networks and communities.
This year’s media kit is connected to the visual identity of IAW2026, where every colour, shape, and icon has been carefully designed to reflect the campaign’s core ideas and subthemes. By using these materials, you are not only sharing content, you are also helping to communicate a story built on meaning, intention, and shared values.
The kit includes:
- Branding guidelines
- Official posters (in English, French, Spanish)
- #IAW2026 visual kit
- #ArchivesForJustice GIF
These resources are ready to download and use across your communications via the links down below. Whether you are organising an event, posting on social media, or amplifying the message in your community, this kit supports your participation in the global conversation.
Note: If you are hosting an event that is not supported by the ICA, please kindly avoid using the ICA logo in your materials.
In the links below, you will find public access to all materials: you can download the posters available in English, French and Spanish (each offered in three colour variations), access and copy icons and graphic elements for your own designs, or edit the translatable poster in your own language.
To customise the templates, simply open the Canva link, make a copy of the design, and start editing. A Canva account is required, but it is free to use.
Design with Purpose: The Visual Identity of #IAW2026
The Dot: A Universal Unit
The dot is the foundational element of the visual identity. Before a record becomes evidence, or a testimony becomes history, there is a single point of information, present or absent, preserved or lost.
In digital systems, this can be seen as the byte. In archival terms, it reflects the decision to record.
Threads of law, written decisions, and official records come together to form the structure of accountability. Each line represents a document, a ruling, a testimony, or a decision that has been recorded and preserved. Individually, these are acts of record-keeping. Together, they form a broader system, an interconnected framework that spans time and geography.
The Globe of Lines illustrates how accountability is not a single act, but a cumulative system that archives sustain, line by line.
The wave is at once a sound wave, a ripple, a record, and an eye, shaped by meaning that moves outward from its origin. It represents witnessing: the act of seeing, being seen, and having one’s experience acknowledged. It also reflects memory itself, which is never static but continues to resonate over time.
A testimony preserved in an archive does not remain fixed, it is encountered, revisited, and reinterpreted. The Witness Wave expresses how memory continues to move, even after it is recorded.
Individual points, each distinct and carrying its own story, come together to form something larger.
The Gathering takes the shape of a globe, a community, and a shared form that emerges from collective presence rather than a single centre of authority.
It reflects participatory archival models and shared stewardship, showing that archives are strongest when they belong to the communities they represent.
This visual highlights absence as something that can be seen and understood. A globe with a missing section, alongside a displaced fragment, reflects what has been removed from its original context. The relationship between these forms tells a clear story: something is missing, and that absence has consequences.
The Missing Piece makes visible the realities of displacement in archives, reminding us that restitution, repatriation, and ethical custodianship begin with recognising and acknowledging what is absent.
The spiral represents a process that is ongoing, incomplete, and still taking shape. It reflects the idea that future justice is not fixed, it is something that must be built over time, through evolving technologies, responsibilities, and frameworks. The circular motion suggests both continuity and transformation. Archival work must adapt to new tools, new rights frameworks, and new responsibilities while remaining grounded in its core purpose.
The Loading Spiral also carries a dual meaning: loading can suggest possibility, but also delay. Future justice is not guaranteed, it is something that must be actively shaped.
