Agency cheeeeese creates a new logo for The Geneva Learning Foundation’s tenth anniversary

The studio drew a labyrinth and a key, taken from Geneva’s coat of arms, into one symbol of how 80,000 health and humanitarian workers learn from each other to solve complex problems

GENEVA (8 October 2026) – The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) today unveils a new logo and visual identity, created by international design agency cheeeeese to mark the foundation’s tenth anniversary.

Read our magazine feature article: When Swiss cheese is good for health: the surprising story of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s new logo

Learn more: Design review: The Geneva Learning Foundation’s new logo

“Our work is hard to explain in one sentence: 80,000 people in more than 100 countries, learning from each other to solve problems that no visiting expert can solve for them,” said Reda Sadki, founder of TGLF. “Lea Pérez turned all of that into a single glyph that you remember after one look. We find it remarkable how well they did it.”

The logo combines two images. A labyrinth stands for the complex problems health workers face in their communities. A key, drawn from the coat of arms of the City and Canton of Geneva, stands for the root cause they find, together with peers who have faced the same challenge elsewhere, to get out of the maze.

TGLF researches, develops, and scales up new ways to learn and lead against critical threats to our societies. In its first decade, it built a network of over 80,000 health and humanitarian workers from more than 100 countries who learn with peers, develop action plans for their own context, and lead change locally. In 2025, the last year of that decade, global health funding collapsed, the impact of climate change on health became a daily operational emergency, and AI began to widen the gap between the well-resourced and everyone else. This had little impact on TGLF’s resilient peer networks: health workers across 137 countries kept learning and acting together.

The studio turned a decade of work into one glyph

The Geneva studio of cheeeeese works mainly for beauty and premium brands, including L’Oréal, LVMH, and Lindt. Cédric Delmont, Country Manager and Creative Director of cheeeeese Switzerland, led the project with Art director Lea Pérez, using the agency’s design en direct method, in which clients work with the designers themselves.

The studio started from one question: how do you show an organisation whose work happens in the field, under urgency, in more than 100 countries? In June 2026, the designers presented three creative routes. TGLF chose the route built from its own initials, T, G, L, and F, which the studio joined into one connected labyrinth on a pixel grid. One stroke forms a key. The designers then refined the balance between symbol and name so that newcomers can read “The Geneva Learning Foundation” at a glance.

The key is a reference to the key of Saint Peter, which has appeared on the shield of Geneva for centuries as a symbol of the authority that governed the city. In the TGLF logo, the key moves inside the problem, to the way out, and into the hands of the person solving it.

“This key echoes the emblem of Geneva, which has a key on it,” said Manon Laridan, Business developer at cheeeeese. “It reinforces the local anchoring and the identity.”

“We spend our days helping brands stand out,” said Cédric Delmont. “The Geneva Learning Foundation asked us to make visible the work of people solving urgent problems in their communities. When the challenge is urgent, the message has to be clear and direct. We built from the key symbol everyone here knows, and put it in the hands of the people who find the solutions. This project took our team out of our usual frame, and that is why we wanted to do it.”

TGLF enters its second decade with new programmes and a new identity

For its first ten years, TGLF used a wordmark set in Trajan, a classical serif shared with a number of philanthropic organisations. It was appropriate for its time and helped establish the foundation with partners, funders, and health ministries. For the second decade, TGLF wanted an identity that shows what it does.

The anniversary year is also a year of expansion. TGLF is opening new courses and programmes almost every week, including certificate programmes on healthy ageing, One Health, malaria control and elimination, noncommunicable diseases in humanitarian settings, AI for health, gender in emergencies, climate and health, health equity, immunization, and decolonization of global health. Its Impact Accelerator supports Scholars to carry out their action plans week by week and to produce evidence that their actions made a difference. TGLF has appointed more than 500 Alumni Ambassadors, leaders in TGLF’s global networks who will shape its second decade of learning and action.

“In 2025, when global health funding collapsed, health workers in our networks kept going, because the problems in their communities did not wait for the funding to return,” said Karen E. Watkins, President of TGLF. “That is what this foundation has built in ten years. In our second decade, we will grow the network, open new programmes, and strengthen the evidence that peer learning leads to change. We invite foundations, philanthropists, and institutional partners who share that ambition to join us.”

TGLF welcomes similar collaborations with creative studios, agencies, and companies that want to contribute their expertise to life-saving health and humanitarian work.

Credits

Client: The Geneva Learning Foundation
Agency: cheeeeese, Geneva studio
Creative direction: Cédric Delmont
Art Director: Lea Pérez
Business Developper: Manon Laridan
Typefaces: Space Mono (Colophon Foundry for Google Fonts), Source Code Pro, Montserrat
Scope: logo, visual identity, social media templates, guidelines
Timeline: May to September 2026

About The Geneva Learning Foundation

The Geneva Learning Foundation is a Swiss non-profit foundation that researches, develops, and scales up new ways to learn and lead against critical threats to our societies. Its platform, community, and network connect 80,000 health and humanitarian workers from more than 100 countries. TGLF supports practitioners as they identify root causes, develop solutions with locally available resources, and lead change in their communities. Learn more at learning.foundation.

About cheeeeese

cheeeeese is an international design agency founded in Paris in 2000, with offices in Paris, Madrid, Geneva, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Guided by Stendhal’s line “Beauty is the promise of happiness,” it works on branding, packaging, retail design, publishing, 3D, and digital for clients including L’Oréal, LVMH, and Lindt. Under its registered method, design en direct, clients work directly with the designers. Learn more at cheeeeese.com.