The convergence of factors such as a growing accessibility to new tools, channels, and approaches towards communication, and their encounter with the increasing levels of specialization and complexity characteristic of the society in which we live, unveils new and stimulating scenarios for design communication.

In this framework, the dissemination of technical, scientific, social and environmental contents, tends to shift from the more traditional and consolidated channels to new and sophisticated communication environments. These are increasingly taking the shape of an informative ecosystem, where a variety of hybrid informative units, collaborate and complement each other.

A key role in this new information space is played by communicative elements that combine graphics, typography, illustration, animation, and that are open to a flexible discourse with their users.

Co2 addresses questions that lie in the very core of the information society, by focusing on three main areas of interest:

• informative-animation
• interactive data visualization
• info-graphics

Generated by a consortium of European Universities that in 2011 started to collaborate in the InformAnimation project, and by fellow Universities active in visual design teaching and research, COmmunicating COmplexity aims at becoming an international reference point for research and education in communicating complexity through new media.