Meet Protocol, a programmatic typeface developed by Counter Forms and Base Design on the occasion of the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia and partner venues Samstag Museum of Art and Adelaide Botanic Garden from 27 February to 8 June 2026.
Protocol is the evolving output of a slew of server-side scripts applied to a typographic skeleton and driven by various data sources. We begin with 15 key models, each layered manifestations on top of the core skeleton. Then, taking the current temperature, wind speed and surface pressure in Adelaide along with the S&P 500, the models are mutated accordingly. These data points, ingested every 6 hours, are further amplified by the inexorable march of time, giving Protocol its various forms.
Every 24 hours, throughout the Biennial, this website will release new iterations of the typeface, allowing viewers to download Protocol in flux. On the final day of the exhibition, the system will reach its programmed demise: bent, fragmented and exhausted. We encourage you to use the fonts as you see fit, proliferating its multiplicities.
The 2026 Adelaide Biennial reveals how materials, selfhood and society are tested — and transformed — under pressure. Twenty-four artists, curated by Ellie Buttrose, push their mediums to build visual complexity, or contort them to convey the curious side of existence.
By downloading the fonts provided on this website you agree to terms and conditions outlined in the End User License Agreement which can be downloaded here.
Counter Forms is a platform that champions emerging, discursive, antipodean type designers. Driven by typographic research, education and advocacy, we publish original typefaces and texts towards a more accessible, diverse and equitable future.
Base Design is an international network of creative studios working at the intersection of culture and commerce.
Counter Forms: Robert Janes, Vincent Chan and Chiarra Paton-Dowling
Base Design: Daniel Peterson and Brigette Cantarella
This work was made on/across/between the stolen lands of many Sovereign people including on Wurundjeri and Whadjuk lands. We acknowledge and honour Ngati Whatua and Te Kawerau a Maki. We recognise that our practices are situated on unceded land and that colonisation continues today. We seek to wrestle, reckon and confront these ongoing injustices.