Display typeface as an element of social movement’s visual identity. Analysis of examples from the XXI century.

Abstract

Over the last 500 years, social and technological changes had a major on influence on type design. Whilst in the past it was an industry dominated by white male designers from middle and upper-classes, today we can observe that increasingly more social groups design typefaces. One of those groups are members and supporters of social movements, whose projects are (or can be) used in visual identities of those movements. This paper analyses those typeface and groups them into 4 categories, based on strategies that designers employ in order to embody certain meanings in the letterforms. The categories include: typefaces based on protest lettering, typefaces based on historical typographic resources, typefaces based on movement’s symbols, and typefaces based on theoretical discourse. The typefaces differ in appearance, legibility, target group and popularity among the users, however, what they have in common is that they all contribute to the expansion of the range of visual means used by social movements in communication.