Analysing the Visual Language of the Justice System – as I had encountered it
My initial encounters with the criminal justice system were stressful and chaotic. The level of disorganisation is shocking and unsettling.
When they sent through the prosecution evidence, it was printed on super cheap thin paper, held together with a corner tag/toggle thing. The envelope was so thin it was falling apart. They’d sent me all 17 of the witness statements against me, and a million other things, with no contents or page numbers.
Many of the sheets had these photocopy marks on them. I wondered if they would work like a fingerprint – uniquely identifying the photocopier that printed them.
They were all completely identical, 3 per page, evenly spaced out.
I found it interesting analysing the different ways in which authority and legitimacy were communicated – especially in these bold black bars at the top & bottom of pages, and the checker marks, which seemed to simultaneously echo ‘no entry’ or ‘warning’ patterns, and the well-known police markings: sillitoe tartan. I found it intriguing the high number of different fonts & sizes used. There was little coherency or constistency.
Another way that legitimacy was communicated were the many different handwritten sections & signatures, all evidencing that a real unique person (an individual, with unique handwriting) had written this. Like the trend of “eye witness accounts” in 17th & 18th century literature, around the birth of the novel.
There were a fair few logos:
With interesting textures from the cheap printing processes:
Here again I was intrigued by the huge range of graphic styles and elements, the mix of fonts, layouts, forms, structures and different ways of communicating legitimacy and authority:
Critical Reference: What Is Queer Typography?
Reflections:
- messiness, mix, connection, intersection
- not finding clear answers – but opening up space for community and conversation
- systems of power determine who is able to succeed, who is written into history
- therefore measures of “success” erase those excluded from systems of power
- failures can be seen as alternative successes
- “who is labeled as other, who is dismissed as failure”
- “those logics of success are the specific ways that heteropatriarchy is maintained in capitalism, through acts of accumulation, reproduction of wealth, individualism, exceptionalism, control, and sovereignty”
- “failure is the map of political paths not taken” – Halberstam
- not legible = not represented by mainstream
- type design = political, commercial (capitalist)
- CIA – fonts frequently uphold and support imperial power
- “radical acts of care can be one of the most effective ways to reists capitalism, which so deeply need to extract and to exploit without concern of others”
- not sure what a type design paradigm based on care is supposed to look like
- foundry —> library
- keep type products fluid and changing, never official, never complete
- “at the core of typography… is control, precision, preservation or standards, the idea of perfect legibility, and the myth of the lone type designer as genius author”
- Queerness is not conformity within a corrupt system
- queerness = attitude
- “…in the face of conformity, and attitude in the sea of passivity, and attitude to say yes when others say no”
- audience (and designer) – one of the things that determines queerness
- “queerness in the scrappy, ad hoc, and sometimes homemade designs that were directly related to the urgency of protest and activism and survival”
“only queer acts of reading and writing”
“queer as an action”
Critical References: Collaborative Typography
Ok, so how to enact my position through typography – not as metaphor, but as action?
I did wide research into collective typography, which challenges something innate in typography – the sole, genius, author-designer, working with precision and control, and asks how you can make this process collaborative, maybe even going so far as to use it to platform (Tre Seals does this beautifully with Vocal Type – celebrating and reviving the work of previous designers from social justice movements).
Here were some of my findings:
Collletttivo
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/collletttivo-typefaces-graphic-design-260319
- Luigi Gorlero of Collletttivo tells It’s Nice That, “our aim is to build an expanding group of typography buffs that can learn and improve through practice and mutual exchange.” Purposely contradicting the often solitary working methods of many type designers, Collletttivo’s open source ethos means its output is more collaborative and more experimental. Additionally the openness helps “broaden [their] audience and provides a platform to give and receive advice from other members of the design community.
- Their name encapsulates this ideology, deriving from the Italian word for collective “collettivo” while the extra “l” and “t” stands for the Italian term for open typography, “libera tipografia”.
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/collletttivo-apfel-brukt-graphic-design-230120
CollabType Workshop
https://wtypefoundry.com/blog/collabtype-workshop-ft-new-latin-wave
- workshop
- instruction kit
- group collaboration
Collaborative Open Source Type Workshop
https://fonts.github.io/typographic-collaboration/
- taking an open source font and adding glyphs
- using ‘design sprint’ – the technique of working on something for 20 mins, then swapping, so someone else can carry it on
- taking a serif font and design a sans for it
- taking a font and making it responsive to different screen sizes
- features a ‘recipe’ for how others can engage too
Group Font
- Raissa Pardini brings creatives from across the world together to create Group, a collaborative typeface raising money for charities
- Each letter and number of its alphabet has been crafted by a different creative
- “I wanted them to do their thing. A real spirit of trust and community”
- “My activism drives my art and my art is my escape from a society that I don’t agree with sometimes. Artists can send powerful messages with what they create and that’s why art is so important. Art shows the real side of everyone of us”
- “We can always do better, if we listen.”
- “Typography is really important. It’s how we communicate through reading, informing, guiding. […] The importance of translating a language the right way, with the right letters. The importance of respecting its history, while projecting it to a more contemporary twist. I see many things happening in typography in our future and I’m excited.”
Critical References: Redaction Typeface
https://www.fastcompany.com/90502764/this-font-brilliantly-subverts-civil-rights-injustices
Reflections:
- “in hopes that individuals looking to communicate within the U.S. legal system have recourse to communicate not just through their own distinct language and voice, but also through design as a form of protest.”
- because stylistically it is modelled on justice system – hard & soft, on the bitmap element – creating inktraps….
- still not 100% convinced by the origin of the typeface and how it enacts protest…
- could I take the idea further? could you create a typeface that, in the use of it, enacted protest
Inspirations from this, to inspire my work:
- abolition
- money bail in america – deep injustice – neither tried nor convicted, punished for poverty
- spiralling – can’t work, childcare etc
- redaction – using legal techniques against them, in reverse
- structured around portraits, poetry, collected documents – source material edited etc, then also type design, digital processes of sharing, printing, circulating
- medium is the message
- texture of justice process
- cheap paper, photocopies, scans, redaction
Observations of problems/issues to respond to:
- really difficult to get in touch with CPS
- need a registered email address
- or post, which takes ages
- system designed to be weighted against people who self-represent
- sooooooo much paper – everything printed out. cheap paper, falling apart envelope
- terrible interaction design
- why is all our tech energy going into making it super easy to shop and use social media??
- why is one of the greatest celebrations of UX design the infinite scroll?
- WTF aren’t these skills being used to help people navigate the benefit system, or the legal system
- the legalese – language is impossible to navigate
- could you do a translation service?
- put into normal words
- a guide to court?
- google translate for legal speak
Reflection on ‘Redaction’ typeface – I want it to work, but I still feel like it falls into the trap of metaphor (as discussed in What Is Queer Typography?)… how is it actually creating resistance? in that it’s free to use and download… but that’s nothing to do with the design… watermarks – a visible sign that the work has been photocopied or shared