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Week 7- Content review

Updated: Sep 27, 2023

This week, I will develop a first draft of my 3,000 word article and start to look at the visual direction and form as the writing develops. To set an appropriate tone of voice to my essay, I need to make sure the language I am using is considerate of those that already have a design background.


What's new?

The paperwork for my new job has gone through, but the starting date has been moved to Mid April to Early May. From now until then, I have nothing else to do, so I suppose this would give me the opportunity to learn more about the finance sector as well as giving me more time on my projects.


In order to sustain my routine and motivation, I will add additional side projects and further my skills in creative software like the processing I did last week.


Big Fish Feedback

" Really clever idea. This app could be a brilliant way of bringing pressure to the brands and forcing them to rethink. Well done and thank you so much for sharing this strong work with us.


As we said, we are hugely grateful for your time and energy. Please keep up the amazing work and we’d love to stay in touch."



RESEARCH //

Angharad Lewis

Angharad Lewis is head of visual communication at the Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design. She has also worked as a writer and editor within the design industry. She studied a double honours degree in Literature and Art, allowing her to explore the relationship between the verbal and visual culture.


Graphics International responds to the changes happening in the Design world. Turned it into Grafik in 2003 because they wanted to reflect the upsurge of independent design studios; Graphics International felt too commercial. Grafik moved from printed to online format because paper costs went up and people were reaching out to chapter digital alternatives. Was this the time the economy crashed? The pace and length of articles changed with reading habits, so longer publications would be translated into events; printed formats have people's attention for longer compared to digital.


The research she currently carries out involves reading other publications and using Instagram as a way of following the latest projects and trends. When she was working on Grafik, content would be given to them by other people.


Lewis mentions the structure of the article comes from the content, and it is important to understand your view on the theme you are doing. When interviewing people, it is important to know as much as possible abut the subject, plan the questions and what you want to achieve from the interview.



So You Want to Publish Magazine (2016) by Angharad Lewis


Chapter 1 -

With the digital revolution offering cheaper content, printed magazines need to be high in quality with invaluable content that couldn't be visualised within a website: take Chanel 5's edition as an example, it can't be digitalised because no ink was used in the proces of making it. The printing industry is now about providing an experience for their audience. However, it is important to create the content as a blog before becoming a printed object because this allows you to refine and develop your writing style and developing a loyal audience; Jefferson Hack from Dazed & Confused also recommends digitalisation first. I can see how this would be important because what is the point in investing in printing when you have no idea if there is an audience out there for you. This reminds me of Adrian Shaughnessy and how he published his own books because no-one was buying them in the book stores; he had to develop his online presence and sell his books through his own website.


Additionally, sustainability movements are having a strong impact on publishing companies, which is why some have had to adapt to using recycled paper and non-toxic inks.


Jefferson Hack from Dazed & Confused. One of the main changes he went through was changing the format from a poster magazine to being stapled, which also changed the perception. It was interesting to hear that printed version of this issue is most popular among women compared to the digital version. I also found it interesting how he referred to his publication as a movement rather than just a magazine due to its purpose to empower youth culture, which relates to how Elena Schlenker from Gratuitous Typetalks about the idea and voice needing to be original - a magazine needs to have a unique message or purpose behind it.



Chapter 2 -

Printing biannual means cost of production is reduced, and you can use more pages with better content. Since my essay is going to be for people of the design industry, I would think these book-like features would be important. I also think this audience would only be reachable through an online presence rather than a book shelf.


According to Johanna German Ross from Disegno, luxury brands in particular look to advertise in biannual magazines because of the amount of detail that has been placed. She also uses the website to create discussion with their audience.


Chapter 5 -

Delayed Gratification initiated the 'slow journalism' movement.


As someone that is about to enter into the Marketing industry, I find it interesting how Tyler Brule thinks social media platforms would dilute the integrity of a magazine: 'we would never put anything on social media that we wouldn't put in the magazine'. He mentions the importance of creating a clear indication of who they are and what they do rather than showing the public images of the office at work. I suppose this depends on the sector you are in. I've never marketed for the print sector, but I know consumers now expect transparency from their brands. Would it be different if there was a picture of the writers out of office and documenting their work? Wouldn't this capture the passion they have for their work? Once a designer starts their own business, do they struggle to transition from being an invisible designer to a transparent business?


Another thing social media is useful for is engagement, which is usually achieved by talking about an interesting topic that an article touches on and intriguing people to find out more. I find it interesting how many ways there are to link a piece of information to the service or brand.



The Layout Book by Gavin Ambrose


I found it interesting how the layout of a magazine can be influenced by musical rhythm. Below is known s a polyrhythm.

Pace can change by increasing or decreasing the amount of white space, colour, text or graphic elements in each page. A change in pace can be used as a break between different types of context.



Nari Variable by Assawari Kulkarni

Assawari Kulkarni is a Graphic Designer that explores culture and the intersection of human behaviour.


The ideas wall shared Nari Variable's essay that explored how typeface often represents gender. She briefly touched on the subject of culture, class and race within design, which intrigued me to look further into the normality of type for my slave trade research.


Nari Variable is an experiment in variable font typeface that is inclusive and does not belong to any one extreme. Three variables are used to create the type : voice (weight), mindset (width) and fight (contrast). I love how they have designed a system that can create different tones of voices.

German typographer Rudolph Koch wanted to create the next blackletter typeface, however, this typeface was lost in translation because the U.S had no history of the blackletter and was instantly associated with the uneducated lower class and black populations . Rob Giampietro introduces a new terminology in his 2004 essay 'stereotypography'. This typeface was used on movie posters for Richard Wright's Native Son and Wulf Sach's Black Anger.

1923 Rudolph Koch

Another typeface that symbolises Africans is Lithos, designed by Carol Twomby in 1989. These typefaces were associated with Africans because it cost less to use woodblock type rather than metal type, making the products cheaper for poor consumers.

Lithos
Othello typeface

Art Deco responded to the changing taste of society during the 'Jazz Age', and like the circus and woodblock type, Art Deco was considered lower class. It is said that typographers categorise Neuland as an Art Deco typeface. The Othello typeface is a woodblock typeface that was named after the black hero of one of Shakespeare's plays, and officially categorised as an Art Deco typeface along with Banco, Studio, Cartoon, Ad Lib and Samson.

In small African-American controlled sectors, no sign of Neuland or Lithos appears. A magazine from Ebony inspired its first issue from Life magazine in the 1950s rather than the 1950s African-American books. As you can see below, Ebony magazine used a modern clean sans-serif.


First issue of Ebony magazine 1945

" Ebony was founded to provide positive images for blacks in a world of negative images and non-images. It was founded to project all dimensions of the black personality in a world saturated with stereotypes." John H.Johnson 1975, founder of Ebony.

It's interesting to see how African-Americans and the white-Americans used visual language differently. It's made me think closely about how I am going to create a narrative for my slave trade editorial. Maybe there could be a contrast in the visual language being used when referring to the people that were protesting against slavery to the people enforcing it. Perhaps I could design a system like Assawari Kulkarni has done, which would calculate the aesthetics of the typeface based on the ratio of slavery vs ant-slavery - this could be achieved by making the woodblock typeface cleaner as you go through the article.


The Eye Magazine article (Silas Munro, Aug 2019) provides some interesting resources such as the Vocal Type foundry that are for creatives of colour because most of Graphic Design is controlled by 'white men'. In 1991, Dr.Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller published an article stating 93% of the design profession to be white, compared to AIGA's 2017 Design Census being 60% white within the design industry. https://www.vocaltype.co



WORKSHOP CHALLENGE //

For this workshop, I am going to create my first draft of my 3,000-word article and produce an inspiration bard for my design approach. I have decided to choose my second topic, which was on slave trade because I feel there is much more to be explored and there can be many different routes I can take within this subject such as, connecting it to the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, our relationship with sugar or looking at how Falmouth culture has developed through time.


In order to narrow down my research and get a better idea of the visual aspect of my piece, my essay will investigate the transition of Falmouth's slave trade to today's vibrant culture. So, what has happened since the slave trade? Why was Cornwall more accepting of different races?

  • During the Tudor period, almost everyone accepted that the Cornish were a seperate ethnic group, characterising them as 'poor, rough and boorish'. However, the decline of the Cornish language has led people to believe this ethnic group isn't seperate from England. 1549, a rebellion was fuelled from the Prayer Book being replaced by English rather than respecting the traditional Cornish language.

  • Sugar rebellion

How could I represent this story visually?

  • This watercolour is of Emidy performing in Truro, which most likely exaggerates Emidy's skin colour and presenting him as hunched over his violin. I like the idea of having something that is acknowledged as part of a design but is still seperate from the rest of the design, which can be played with through grouping or contrasting colours or typefaces. Maybe I could use metal typeface with a small amount of woodblock type to represent the racial differences.

  • Emidy is represented by wealthy white men such as Buckingham, perhaps I could use the woodblock type that is used to represent African-Americans as a way of symbolising this.

  • The layout could represent the violin notes used by Emidy, which is the only way he was accepted by Falmouth society. Only power he had was through music.

  • Power enough to live as a free man but no power to speak or write for himself; conforming to attitudes to make others comfortable. The design of this editorial needs to acknowledge British interpretation of Emidy's ethnic group rather than the real expression of Africa shown in Vocal Voices type.

  • The British thought neutralising the 'threat' Africans posed by encouraging them to mimic the behaviour of the British. Maybe I could create a system that gradually transforms African type into stereotypical British type during this timeline.

Characteristics of Guinea Africa

Sculptures have a naturalistic style of representation of native animals.


Anton Scholtz

Based in Africa, he has specialised in African fonts to make up for the lack of fonts that are suitable for African inspired design.

Aarde Black, 2005

This is the definitive standard African font. It combines wonderful readability with tremendous panache. The fact that it has a full character set (UPPER and lower case), all punctuation and all special characters, means that it can be used in just about any African design context.

This font was inspired by the gusty breezes that buffet you while you cross the African veldt on safari in an open vehicle. It is lighthearted and sunny; quirky and humurous. It includes a full character set, with all the accented characters used in the major European languages.


In its loose, angular forms, it is reminiscent of thorn bushes dotting the immense Kalahari desert. Spiky and freeform, Doorn calls to mind the irregular hand-drawn lettering found on wooden signs outside small shops in tiny African villages.


Assegai

Named for the Zulu traditional spear, Assegai evokes the long, slim outline of the weapon, and the strength of the Zulu warrior. The font combines the irregular shapes of tribal African art with the simple, clean elegance of contemporary design.


Caslon - British Type

Caslon was the first English type, designed in 18th century by William Caslon. ITC Caslon 224 was based on William's original version

Experimentation with Caslon and Doorn

I decided to combine Caslon with Doorn type because I wanted to experiment with type that is practical and could be used everyday. I was experimenting with ways I could combine these typefaces and concluded to mimic Doorn's geometric forms with Caslon's serifs.


To develop this further, I would probably experiment in more detail and see whether I could create 25/75 and 75/25 typeface (percentage of African verses British).


Black and British: A forgotten History

First Encounters

  • First recorded African community in Britain guarded a Roman fort 3rd Century Aballava fort. Aballaba was a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall located at Burgh by Sands, Cumbria. Makes me wonder why in the 16th century the British were miss-treating them.

  • White-washed history of Roman Britain. Emperor Septimius Severus was of African heritage.

  • Professor Mary Beard.

  • Francis Barber was part of the household 18th century writer Dr Samuel Johnson. Johnson lived at the centre of London's cultural life. Painting 'Yung Black', who was a slave to Johnson at age 10 in 1752. Became a father-figure and gave Francis his fortune. During the time millions were en-slaved. Francis married a white woman and started a family as a free man. Cedric Barber is a relative. estimated 10,000 to 15,000 black people living in Britain during this time.

  • Three wise men represent 3 christian continents, which took place in medieval times (4th century): Africa, Asia and Europe. Unlike Emidy's portrait, this portal isn't about exclusion but of unity. Africa was seen as a land of riches, inspiring the British to reach its shores.

  • The reformation. Greenwich palace was where Henry VIII was born. Catherine of argon brought multi-racial culture in 1501. John Blanke arrived with Catherine and was employed as a trumpeter for Henry VIII, and was successful in asking for equal pay.

  • Elmina was repurposed as a slave trade. Negotiated land. Was built as a trading centre for diplomatic missions, trading partners in African gold with local kings. Colonised Ashanti in 1890s. The book of Richard Hakluyt's Principle Navigations talks about John Los taking 5 African men back to England where they learnt English and was told to act as interpreters for future negotiations- returned home a few years later. But 7 years later Sir John Hawkins took 300 Negroes and sold them into slavery, becoming a pioneer in English slave trade and demonstrated that humans were as precious as gold.

Freedom

  • Battle of Trafalgar had 100 black sailors. Guarding Nelson, John Abraham, James Black, George Brown.

  • Bunce Island - ruins of a slave fortress 17th century. Brought and imprisoned on island before being shipped. Treated them like cattle when examining them before being bought. Slave owners would rape the females. Branded DY for Duke of York or Royal African Company (RAC) burnt on their chest.

  • The British were masters of the slave trade, trading over 3 million people over the 2 centuries.

  • The profit being made was going towards funding for British Industrial Revolution.

  • Virginia created a law that made people born in England a permanent slave if their mother was a slave. 1660s. Slavery was not part of English law because it contradicted ideals of British freedom. Granville Sharp lawyer.

  • Lord Dunmore promised freedom to all male slaves that had escaped American plantations to fight on the British side. Risking their lives. Boats on James River. 1783.

  • 1787, 441 poor black people and their white wives exported to Africa. Frank plague. Crops would be an alternative to slave trade. Most settlers had died.

Moral Mission

  • 1838 slavery in the British empire was over. Other European powers didn't follow their example.

  • In 1808 to 1860, Royal Navy created a special force to protect British slave ships but was transitioned into a force that intercepted slave ships to free Africans onboard. Over 150,000 liberated men and women.

  • People of Freetown - Kingsyard.

  • Captain Forbes received a captive 6 year old girl Sara Bonetta from African leader King Gezo of Dahomey as a diplomatic gift in 1850. Presented to Queen Victoria and adopted. The child became a social experiment to demonstrate an African could become educated, christianised and civilised. Reminds me of the film Belle where a girl was brought up in high society after her mother died. But why did we start to care about Britishness during these centuries?

  • Fredrick Douglas 1846.

  • Uncle Tom's Cabin.

  • Minstrelsy was an anti-slavery act in 1832, but also had racist connotations once it was transformed into the Black & White Minstrel show in 1957-1978. Attempted to make African culture public. 1968 attempted a show without makeup.

  • Anti-slavery Britain was economically dependant on America's slavery cotton. Cotton Famine 1862. Civil War was about slavery. Slaves were swapped for cotton.

Homecoming : Episode 4

  • 1920s - Leslie Hutchinson became the era's acceptable face of blackness due to his musical talents in London. Wasn't allowed to enter the front door to get to his show or stay in the hotel where he was playing. 1930s afair with Edwina Mountbatten scandal in the newspapers made him realise the inequality.

  • 130,000 WWII soldiers were black GIs arrived in Britain. Segregated America sent a segregated army to Britain, Black and White troops lived in seperate camps. Jim Crow laws from America and racial violence applied in Britain.White GIs attacking black allied soldiers. Contrasts with Roman attitudes.

  • 1954, 10,000 West Indians came to Britain and 1955 was 15,000. Mass migration for the commonwealth wasn't expecting black people. 1948 act. Denied British identity.


First Essay Draft

Joseph Emidy was born in West Africa in 1775, captured at the age of twelve and enslaved in Brazil. His master taught him the fiddle, leading him to play the violin for the Lisbon Opera, Portugal. However, after being heard by British Admiral Sir Edward Pellow, Joseph was kidnapped and enslaved on a British boat for seven years before being abandoned in Falmouth at thirty years of age.

During this time, Falmouth was known for mixed religion as the Fox family created ‘the Quaker’ in 1670 and a Jewish community settled in the 1740s. Ironically, the Portuguese baptised their slaves and the British saw the slaves as less of a threat if the slaves would adopt British mannerisms. It was estimated over ten thousand African people were living in Britian during this time, with a law stating the child of a slave would be branded as a slave their entire life.

Emidy spent the last 30 years of his life as a teacher, composer and violinist. Even though Cornwall was more tolerant over Emidy’s skin colour compared to London, this was only overlooked due to his musical talents and his mannerisms; Emidy was advised by London music critics to stay away from the capital’s music circle.

The racial intolerance in Britain wasn’t always bad. The first recorded African community in Britain was recorded in the 3rd Century and located at Cumbria’s Aballaba fort. The medieval times started representing the three wise men as three different Christian continents, showing the unity of Europe, Africa and Asia. started representing the three wise men as three different Christian continents, showing the unity of Europe, Africa and Asia.



First Moodboard

Maybe the material of my piece could be influenced by the trading system: human skin, gold, parts of a ship, cotton, etc.

Haven't considered the format of the piece though. Could end up being something along the lines of engraved chains or the sail part of the ship.


Pan African flag
African Union Flag

I could make the colour palette a bit more exciting by playing with the flag and doing something similar to the typography - flag patterns that merge from African to British. Due to Africa having so many flags, I have decided to use a flag that has been used to unify African people as a whole such as the African Union or the African Pan flag.


The Pan African Flag was created in 1920 by Marcus Garvey, approved by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in America. This was a political act because Africa didn't have a flag during this time, and this represented an activist movement for national identity. Red symbolised the blood of African people and the people that fought for liberation. Black represented their race. And green symbolised growth of Africa. Before the flag was created, the minstrels created a song in 1900 regarding the importance of having a flag and how Africa had none to represent racial pride, which inspired Garvey to create this flag. Since then, all African flags have been inspired by the colours of this flag.

This podcast is from a 3,000 word article, which might be considered as a format. I think it is relevant to how modern readers engage and digest information, and I think doing a podcast would bring me out of my comfort zone. In order to make this dyslexic friendly, I would like to include text within this podcast - there is an opportunity to be playful with this medium by showing the content of the book move. This would also be useful for today's digitalised book industry and sustainability attitudes.


In terms of how I originally intended to transform the African flag into the British, I think my article would work better. The transparency of the flag would became more visible as you go through the article because the flag itself represents a nation becoming visible for the first time and symbolises the blood of the African past. I also think it could act as a visual timeline of how events have led up towards the development of this flag. As Africans conform to Britishness, Africans start to fight for their national identity.


This is an illustration of how I would approach integrating the African flag into my article, showing the development of Africa's first flag as we move through the slave trade.


I was originally going to do a layout inspired by Emidy's music, however, my research has become more about identity and I wanted to reflect that visually.


Perhaps I could still use the flag experiments as a front cover?



REFLECTION //

Through my research, I have learnt how the digital platform plays a crucial role in building an audience, engaging and starting a discussion, becoming more accessible, and adapting to the sustainability movement.

When creating a printed version, you have the freedom to write more compared to the digital platform. But, it also needs to be higher in quality in terms of structure, format and content, which is why magazines such as Disegno spend more time on each publication and only publish twice a year.


It's interesting to see how African-Americans and the white-Americans used visual language differently. It's made me think closely about how I am going to create a narrative for my slave trade editorial. Maybe there could be a contrast in the visual language being used when referring to the people that were protesting against slavery to the people enforcing it.


After I started going more into my research, I started becoming intrigued and questioning why Britain's Britishness was so important during the 16th-19th century because during this time slaves would be encouraged to learn their version of civilised. I like the idea of using typography to demonstrate African culture being transformed into the British culture. After much research, I couldn't find any African type during the slave trade and one of the tutors suggested this might have been due to history being erased or repressed, so I had to settle for a modern interpretation from an African typographer. Both British and African typefaces are body type because I didn't want to limit how I would use this type for legibility purposes, and I also wanted to use typefaces that have been used within everyday surroundings.


I was originally going to inspire my layout on the music of the slave Emidy, however, I have found my research becoming more about identity and decided to visually show how the events of slavery have influenced the development Africa's first flag.


I did find it difficult to start my essay because the slave trade is an unexplored area for me and I didn't realise how much research was out there, making it more difficult to direct what it is I wanted to talk about. However, I did find a playful format that has the potential to get me out of my comfort zone socially and stretch my knowledge of moving image software.



REFERENCES //

Research

Ideas Wall

Things I've looked at

Things I've shared


Workshop Challenge

Recent Posts

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