We are excit­ed to unveil the new visu­al iden­ti­ty of the Human-Machine Commu­ni­ca­tion (HMC) Divi­sion, includ­ing our new HMC logo!

Earli­er this year, we invit­ed our commu­ni­ty to partic­i­pate in a design chal­lenge to devel­op a visu­al iden­ti­ty that captures the spir­it, diver­si­ty, and schol­ar­ly vision of HMC. Between Febru­ary and April 2026, we received sever­al submis­sions from our members, all of which demon­strat­ed remark­able creativ­i­ty, promise, and qual­i­ty. This made the deci­sion anything but easy.

The HMC lead­er­ship team care­ful­ly reviewed the submis­sions, consid­er­ing their visu­al appeal as well as how well they repre­sent­ed what HMC stands for. After sever­al rounds of discus­sion and revi­sions, one design emerged as the clear favorite. We are delight­ed to announce LEO-LIU Jindong as the winner of the HMC Design Chal­lenge and the creator of our new HMC logo!

The idea behind the logo

The logo combines simple, recog­niz­able visu­al elements to repre­sent differ­ent facets of Human-Machine Communication:

• The H incor­po­rates a gener­ic (mean­ing age- and gender­less) human head icon, repre­sent­ing the people at the heart of HMC and empha­siz­ing the open­ness, diver­si­ty, and inclu­sive­ness of our schol­ar­ly community.
• The M contains a circuit pattern, repre­sent­ing the tech­no­log­i­cal and infra­struc­tur­al layer of HMC. The microchip evokes the tech­no­log­i­cal foun­da­tions under­ly­ing many of the machines we study.
• The C incor­po­rates a chat bubble, reflect­ing the impor­tance of digi­tal media inter­faces and the grow­ing impor­tance of chat­bots as a form of HMC. At the same time, the univer­sal­ly recog­niz­able symbol repre­sents commu­ni­ca­tion more broad­ly, acknowl­edg­ing that HMC encom­pass­es many differ­ent commu­nica­tive modes.
• The colors draw on the visu­al iden­ti­ty of the Inter­na­tion­al Commu­ni­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (ICA), connect­ing HMC to the wider ICA commu­ni­ty of which we are proud to be a part.

The over­all simplic­i­ty of the design is inten­tion­al: it reflects HMC as an open, inclu­sive, and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary schol­ar­ly commu­ni­ty, while creat­ing a distinc­tive visu­al iden­ti­ty that can work across differ­ent contexts and media.

A new look for HMC

The new logo will form the foun­da­tion of HMC’s visu­al iden­ti­ty going forward. We will grad­u­al­ly incor­po­rate it into our website, infor­ma­tion mate­ri­als, social media pres­ence, confer­ence mate­ri­als, and other commu­ni­ca­tions to create a more consis­tent and recog­niz­able HMC identity.

We would like to thank all members who partic­i­pat­ed in the design chal­lenge. Your creativ­i­ty, time, and engage­ment helped shape the visu­al iden­ti­ty of our commu­ni­ty, and we are very grate­ful for your contributions.

And a special congrat­u­la­tions and thank you to LEO-LIU Jindong for creat­ing the design that will repre­sent HMC in the years to come!