Studio

Rectangle is a design and software development studio based in Glasgow, Scotland and founded by Daniel Powers and Lizzie Malcolm in 2017. We work with information and technology and content and form to develop projects in various media.

Work

We write software, build tools, create archives, design interfaces and explore technologies. Our work is focused on building tools to structure stores of information, and interfaces to access them.

Clients

We work with journalists, human rights organisations, cultural organisations, artists, curators, workspaces, publishers, researchers and educational institutions.

Contact

studio@rectangle.design

Follow

Bird, Camera

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Forensic Architecture
Summer 2024–ongoing
Collaborating with the research agency on internal research tools and public facing interfaces
Flotilla Tracker
2025–ongoing
A vessel tracking system and interface for the public to follow aid missions to Gaza
INTERPRT Book
November 2025
An Image of Colonial Violence Pulled from the Air: a digital book by the forensic investigation agency INTERPRT.
A searchable list of all named victims in Gaza since October 2023, as published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza
A resource for researchers, journalists and practitioners to learn about munitions and their use and impact in conflicts
Tisch Zwei
July 2023
Website and identity for a cultural association and space based in Ennenda Switzerland
CCA Annex
April 2021
An online platform that serves as a digital extension to the CCA’s physical galleries
Red Forest
June 2023
On the Loss of Energy: an online sound work for Helsinki Biennial 2023
Arika website home page
Arika
July 2022
Website and archive for the political arts organisation
Open weather ebook interior page showing several ground station recordings of the earth
Open-weather Projects
October 2022 – ongoing
Projects and artworks with open-weather, a feminist experiment in imaging and reimagining the planet in an era of climate crisis
A lexicon of words and ideas – part of Scotland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale Architettura 2023
Agile City
September 2022
A tool to hire creative work and event spaces at Civic House and Glue Factory in Glasgow
Scotland and Venice website showing the exhibition archive
An archive of Scotland’s contributions to the Venice Biennale in both art and architecture
GSA Showcases
September 2018
A series of graduate exhibition sites for the Glasgow School of Art.
CIJ Website
June 2020
A redesign of the website and update to the identity of the Centre for Investigative Journalism.
Artsformation
October 2020
An identity and website for a research project exploring the intersection between the arts, society, and technology.
Critical Making
July 2018
A identity and website for the Critical Making research consortium.
Culture Counts
July 2019
A tool to explore facts and statistics on the benefits of cultural investment.
Interfaces Conference
September 2016
A poster with an identity crisis for the Center for Interdiciplinary Methodologies at Warwick University
Myung Feyen
January 2015
A website chronologising the work and process of the Dutch artist Myung Feyen
Indygraph
September 2014
A twitter visualisation of the conversation surrounding the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014
Open-weather Website
2021–2026
Digital infrastructure including website, archive, decoder interface, and contribution pipeline
Airwars
June 2018–ongoing
Designing and maintaining the archive for the civilian casualty monitor
The Death Zone
September 2026
A platform mapping mapping violence in the Polish–Belarusian borderlands for Border Forensics
Soph Dyer
September 2026
A website for designer/researcher Soph Dyer
An identity and website for a project investigating military industrial complexes as economic, climate and geopolitical threats
The Last X Years
February 2025
An online broadcast of memories/reflections/rants about Brexit, by artist Jay Bernard.
Ceasefire
July 2023
A multilingual visualisation of Israeli court cases, demonstrating how the Israeli justice system shields from accountability for civilian harm
GIJN
February 2024
An identity and 12 language website for the Global Investigative Journalism Network
Revolutionary Papers home page showing a grid of journals in the main column, and announcements and teaching tools in a secondary column
Revolutionary Papers
February 2022
An archive and collection of teaching tools for 20th century periodicals of Left, anti-imperial and anti-colonial critical production.
A redesign of the website for the Berwick Film Festival for their 2020 online festival, updated in 2023 for the return to in-person viewings
Pause For Thought website homepage
Pause for Thought
August 2021
A website of written commissions reflecting on a shifting media landscape
Counterflows
April 2021
A website for the the Glasgow-based music festival
An illustrated map of Scotland with markers plotting Map of Stories entries
Map of Stories
December 2022
A collection of 77 stories to explore, celebrate, and promote oral storytelling traditions in Scotland
Xinjiang report introduction title and illustration
Amnesty Xinjiang
June 2021
A microsite detailing the systematic abusing being carried out against Muslims living in Xinjiang
Who Speaks?
August 2020
A website for the Non-Linear Narrative project Who Speaks? Artificial Intelligence, Language, and Democracy.
CIJ Graphics
June 2020
A library of graphics and animations for the Centre for Investigative Journalism website.
Arkadi Zaides
September 2016
A website for an Israeli artist and choreographer, exploring information density in web design
A series of infographics on the 2019 protests and internet shutdown in Iran in which security forces killed at least 304 people.
Concrete Flux
July 2018
Digital publication and newspaper for a bi-lingual journal
Client Earth
May 2016
Map and document database of timber regulation resources for lawyers and environmental activists
Out of Data
January 2017
An identity and poster series for an annual theme at the Center for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at Warwick University
Make Works Extension
September 2017
A subversive browser extension that suggests alternative methods to manufacture, repair, or replace items as you shop on IKEA.com
Predominant.ly
September 2015
A website giving new life to old ways of finding music
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Workshops

  • NLN Tech Week, January 2024, KABK, The Hague
  • Test Unit, 10–16 June 2019, Glasgow
    A project concerned with debunking the myth of seamlessness or immateriality around data and technology. By exposing or visualising the seams between systems we can reassert our understanding of, and agency within, the technological landscape.

    image: Jassy Earl

  • Archives, March 2019, CCS Detroit
    Over two days we worked with students to create digital archives using WordPress and custom fields.
  • Participatory Web, October 2018, Goldsmiths University
    An exploration of online participation, collaboration, and competition.
  • Greenpeace @ KABK, September 2018
    Again with the NLN Master, we directed a workshop to kick off a year long collaboration project with Greenpeace.
  • Psychographics, April 2018
    A week long workshop at the KABK’s Non Linear Narrative Master. Following the recent investigations into the practices of Cambridge Analytica, we asked students to download their entire Facebook archive. Using a combination of text and image analysis, they designed an interfaces to their dataset, confronting the quantity and intimacy of the information.
  • Command & Control, Tech Week, January 2018
    A workshop examining the proliferation of dashboards and control rooms outwith their traditional domains, and into our everyday lives. In collaboration with Thomas Boland.

Talks + Lectures

  • Wim Crouwel Lecture, Stedelijk Museum, November 2026
  • We Have No Plan B*: Architectures of Erasure, Aftermath and Repair, November 2026
  • Glasgow School of Art, April 2026
  • Digital Investigations Lab, London, 24 March 2026
  • Disentangling Conflict Data at Scale, London, 20 February 2020
  • Templeton on the Green, Glasgow, 3 September 2019
  • The Whisky Bond, Glasgow, 12 June 2019
  • College for Creative Studies, Detroit, 20 March 2019
  • Design Theory, GSA, 16 October 2018
  • Rectangle & Make Works, Mozilla Festival, London, 29 October 2017

Teaching

Both Lizzie and Dan taught Interaction Design and Coding in the Non Linear Narrative masters programme at the KABK in The Hague.

Dan previously taught in the Interaction Design department at ArtEZ in Arnhem and Lizzie in the bachelor programme for Graphic Design at the KABK, as well as the the Communication Design department at the Glasgow School of Art.

Interns

We’ve been lucky to have Samuel Rynearson (2018) and Josh Krauth-Harding (2020) as student interns.