Next on the rotationSouth Africa · 8–10 March 2027
How this site is made

Colophon

One rotation
Three regions
Three typefaces

The existing tpac mark already contains the strategy: three blades around one centre, and a new colour where they overlap. Everything here is derived from it rather than added to it.

TPAC does not run three conferences. It runs one conference that turns — South Africa opens the year, North America follows in spring, Asia closes it. The site is built from that fact: a fixed rail whose mark rotates with your scroll position, three region colours taken from the three blades, and an editorial rhythm that alternates between two grounds like the recto and verso of a printed page.

The mark is used exactly as drawn. It is never redrawn, outlined, gradiated, recoloured or placed in a container. Two variants exist: the original for light grounds, and one in which the neutral letterforms take the bone value so the blades keep their exact colour on dark.

Colour

Seven values, one rule.

Only one blade colour is live in any band, and it only ever appears as a rule, a numeral, a link or a hover wash — never as a filled panel. The full palette assembles only once, as you scroll the three regions, exactly the way the mark assembles from three blades.

Ground The base surface. Warm black at night, a barely warmed near-white by day — never pure black or pure white.
Ground, alternate The second surface. Sections alternate between the two to give the page the rhythm of a printed spread.
Ground, inverted Reserved for two or three feature bands. Whatever the theme, one pole always stays available for emphasis.
Amber South Africa — the upper blade. Steps deeper on light grounds so it holds contrast.
Sky North America — the left blade.
Vermilion Asia — the right blade.
Green The through-line. Reserved for what is true across all three regions: Global Gold partners, live states, the tracks.
Umber The colour the mark actually produces where two blades cross. Connective tissue only — footnotes, the archive duotone, hairlines.

Type

Three faces, three jobs.

Archivo carries everything structural and earns its keep on the width axis. Instrument Serif Italic is rationed to four or five words a page. Plex Mono holds every date, venue and status — the voice of a conference that thinks of itself as a working floor.

Archivo Variable
wdth 116 · wght 800
tracking −0.040em

The working floor of the Sage ecosystem

Archivo Variable
wdth 122 · wght 760
region names, uppercase

South Africa

Archivo Variable
wdth 74 · wght 700
figures, tabular

23 · 04 · 02 · 09

Archivo Variable
wdth 100 · wght 400
lede, 58ch measure

Three regions, one rotation. South Africa opens the year, North America follows in spring, Asia closes it.

Instrument Serif
italic 400
rationed counterpoint

the floor · advantage · of · wherever

IBM Plex Mono
400 / 500 · +0.14em
the working data

8–10 MARCH 2026 · GLENBURN LODGE & SPA · MULDERSDRIFT · GAUTENG · CONCLUDED

Photography

One grade, no stock.

TPAC’s photography is real and unglamorous: phone cameras, hotel ballrooms, mixed white balance, fifteen different photographers across four years. The fix is not to replace it but to put all of it through one grade.

Filmic shoulder, 3.6% matte lift, cool shadows against amber highlights, 11% desaturation, a soft vignette. Every image on this site has had exactly that applied and nothing else — no compositing, no relighting, no faces removed. Crops are decisive: 16:9 for a region lead, 4:5 for a support portrait, 3:2 in the strip. People are always recognisable; nobody is ever a silhouette used as texture.

Editorial rules

What this site will
and will not say.

A conference site is wrong eleven months of the year if it is written as though an event were always imminent. These rules are what keep it honest between editions.

Always

  • Dates, venues and cities are set in Plex Mono, never in display type.
  • A region is never named without its current status.
  • Anything unannounced is shown as unannounced, not hidden.
  • Anything unconfirmed carries a dagger and a footnote.
  • Testimonials are attributed, or they are not used.

Never

  • No countdown to a date that has not been announced.
  • No attendance or delegate figures — none are published.
  • No stock photography, at any size, for any reason.
  • No card grid where an index or a spread would do the job.
  • No African visual shorthand. The place is named; that is enough.

Credits

Made from
what was there.

Nothing on this site invents a date, a speaker, a sponsor, a statistic or a quotation.

Typefaces

  • Archivo — Omnibus-Type
  • Instrument Serif — Instrument
  • IBM Plex Mono — IBM
  • All open-licensed, self-hosted

Photography

  • TPAC’s own, 2022–2026
  • Regraded, not restaged
  • Sourced from tpac.biz

Identity

  • The existing tpac mark
  • Used unaltered
  • Two ground variants only

Facts