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Typoetry Activism
Project Type
Design
Date
April 2023
The Brief:
This brief focused on how poetry, typography and activism can be used in combination to help localised communities fight climate related environmental issues in their areas.
The Challenge:
Everyone is affected by climate change, but sometimes you have to start small to incite change. This brief required me to find a poem and use emerging font technology and typography to reinforce its meaning, focusing on an ecological or environmental message.
The brief set the challenge of using emerging font technology from Google Fonts, including variable fonts and Open Source technology. Combined with the possibilities of poetry, it provided a unique opportunity to incite audiences to make a difference.
The Solution
My Affirmative design solution highlighted how existing suggestions to solve the issue around plastic microfibre pollution mainly involved capturing these fibres, either in sewage processing or at the source in household laundry. In contrast to this, I wanted to explore the possibility of engaging with the materiality of the clothing itself. My research highlighted the enormous levels of synthetic textiles used in current garment production, compared to our historic use of natural fibres like cotton, linen and wool.
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Researching this line of enquiry further, I discovered just how neglected the Welsh woollen industry is. This connection between materials, environment and culture lead to the development of a proposed initiative between the British Wool Board and the Welsh Government, with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, will incentivise the production of renewable wool, as well as connecting them with welsh woollen mills to reinvigorate and incentivise the production and market of woollen garments.
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As this affirmative solution to the issue of microplastics involved the promotion of the woollen industry in Wales, communicating the heritage feeling through the visual language was key. This included taking motifs from Welsh textile designs, maintaining a clean, monochromatic colour pallet to emphasis the connection to the Welsh landscapes and implementing a cross-stitch display type, relating the visual language back to craft and materials.
To effectively contextualise the concept for the affirmative design solution, I developed a logo and visual identity concept.
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Taking inspiration and shape motifs from Welsh textile and heritage crafts, the logo takes the form of a sheep and farmer, indicating the benefit for both human and non human communities. The logotype uses a sophisticated, vintage feeling serif type to communicate the return to more traditional methods of textile production and its benefit for people and the planet.