Making UAP research read like policy.
The Sol Foundation is a research institute that studies unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. We design its policy papers, its Science and Policy Briefings and the program for its symposium.
Visit thesolfoundation.orgA subject that gets a laugh, for readers who can’t afford to laugh.
Sol writes for congressional staff, scientists and journalists. Plenty of them open a paper about UFOs already half expecting to dismiss it. Design can’t make the argument for them, but it can make sure nothing on the page gives anyone an excuse to stop reading.
A policy paper that looks like one
The UFO Enigma: A Call for US Government Disclosure, by Colonel Karl E. Nell (retired), is part of The Policy Papers of the Sol Foundation. We set it the way a policy journal would: a numbered contents page, the executive summary up front, chapters that open with a drop cap, and the notes and bibliography at the back.
The cover is the only place we let it look like outer space.
A series you can spot from across the room
The Science and Policy Briefings are shorter, seven or eight pages each, and they come out one at a time. Every cover uses the same layout: a night-sky photograph, the title set large, the author underneath and the issue number at the bottom. Put three next to each other and they read as a set.
Inside, the same rules
Each briefing follows the same system as the policy papers: contents, an executive summary, numbered sections, a note on the author and a full bibliography. Briefing No. 3 covers the first peer-reviewed scientific analysis of possible UAP materials, which is exactly the kind of claim that needs its sources right there on the page.
Then a weekend in Italy
For the 2025 Sol Foundation Symposium at Lake Maggiore, Italy, we designed the printed program: the evening boat tour and film screenings on the front, the full schedule of talks on the back. Same black, same type, so the program looks like it came from the same place as the papers.
