Abel B. Ayalew | Visual Designer

15 years making
complex work clear,
and hard to ignore.

15 years making
complex work clear,
and hard to ignore.

Selected work

Stockholm+50

For the UN’s Stockholm+50 summit, I played a key role in bringing the visual ecosystem to life. I designed the event website and produced the full suite of digital and print assets.

For the UN’s Stockholm+50 summit, I played a key role in bringing the visual ecosystem to life. I designed the event website and produced the full suite of digital and print assets.

For the UN’s Stockholm+50 summit, I played a key role in bringing the visual ecosystem to life. I designed the event website and produced the full suite of digital and print assets.

Recipe of Change

A food waste initiative piloted across hotels in Türkiye ahead of COP31. The brief was behavioural as much as visual. Guests had to leave less behind while still feeling they'd been offered abundance. The answer was an illustrated world built on warmth, appetite and wit, with persuasion carried by charm. I developed the visual identity and illustration system, spanning everything from buffet signage and table tents to children's activity fliers, digital screens and back-of-house staff posters.

UNEP at COP30

In November 2025 the world's attention turned to Belém. UNEP arrives at a COP carrying several agendas, potentially fragmenting into separate campaigns. Leading the design, I built one identity elastic enough to carry every thematic pillar and still read as a single voice in a very crowded field.

On the page

A selection of recent publications and reports. Long-form editorial design across research, policy and advocacy. Building layouts, data visualisation and typographic hierarchies and styles that have to hold across hundreds of pages, multiple authors and tight production deadlines.

UN Environment Assembly

A selection from an extensive portfolio of print and digital deliverables for UNEA. Delivering this volume of work requires agility and strict consistency during the challenging sprint leading up to the assembly.

UNEA is the world's highest decision-making body on the environment, and the run-up compresses an enormous volume of print and digital work into a very short window. Volume is the obvious problem, but coherence is the real one. Dozens of deliverables, many authors, no time for second passes. It holds together because it all comes through familiar hands.

B-Lab Africa Summit

A selection from an extensive portfolio of print and digital deliverables for UNEA. Delivering this volume of work requires agility and strict consistency during the challenging sprint leading up to the assembly.

In 2023, I crafted the visual identity for B-Lab Africa Summit. Key deliverables included the primary event logo and samples of marketing materials, stage design, and digital assets.

In 2023, I crafted the visual identity for B-Lab Africa Summit. Key deliverables included the primary event logo and samples of marketing materials, stage design, and digital assets.

Zero Waste Day

I established the visual language for the launch of the International Day of Zero Waste. I used dynamic color blends and bold graphics to drive awareness. The resulting digital campaign was highly successful, securing the design’s continuity as the core brand.

Designing the identity for a new UN international day means designing something that has to survive its own launch. I established the visual language for the International Day of Zero Waste, using dynamic colour blends and bold graphics to build awareness quickly. It was retained as the core identity for the observance.

Let’s Connect.

Whether you have a project in mind, want to collaborate, or just want to say hi, I’d love to hear from you.

info@abelbelachew.com

Let’s Collaborate.

Whether you have a project in mind, want to collaborate, or just want to say hi, I’d love to hear from you.

info@abelbelachew.com