Administration after the Age of Bureaucracy

Bureaugraphies is an international research project that investigates how administrative logic continues to shape our present – long after the decline of classical bureaucratic institutions. The project approaches administration not as a static apparatus, but as a cultural, technical and narrative form.

Led by the University of Vienna, in collaboration with academic partners in Germany and Switzerland, the project brings together multiple disciplines: literary and media studies, sociology and archival theory. Instead of focusing solely on systems, Bureaugraphies explores how knowledge is produced, ordered and legitimised through practices such as documenting, regulating, filing or narrating – from official protocols to institutional routines and everyday forms of control.

The research contributes to a broader understanding of how administrative structures influence subjectivity, shape institutional memory and inscribe themselves into cultural forms.

The complexity of the project needed to be made visible and comprehensible - without sliding into a kind of visual inaccessibility often associated with traditional administrative systems. At the same time, in a societal climate marked by growing scepticism towards science, it was essential to develop a design that provides orientation, builds trust and makes the relevance of research understandable.

We developed a brand design that combines academic depth with typographic clarity. A website was created that structures content clearly, communicates the project’s interdisciplinary character and improves accessibility for different audiences – both within and beyond academia.

Visual elements from the world of administration, tables, forms, file structures, were consciously integrated and translated into a functional digital interface.