Typographic identity
Context of your teaching practice, your positionality in relation to your practice?
I teach on the BA Graphic Communication Design programme at CSM, specifically teaching typography across all three stages of BAGCD, as part of GCD Practices.
I am a white, middle-class male, 42 years of age, British, heterosexual and married. I don’t have any disabilities, and I’m not religious. I have been educated within the UK educational system, including state comprehensive at secondary level and undergraduate design education at Central Saint Martins.
I have grown up within Western society and have been influenced by Western cultural references, design education and aesthetics. My views and knowledge of the subject of graphic design and typography largely align with the Eurocentric position. When talking about students, views and knowledge from marginalised communities, I acknowledge that I have power in this situation as my views align to the dominant Western canon of design.
What is the intervention you have designed in your teaching practice (what is the aim, when will it take place, what resources, training, support is required)?
The intervention is typography exercise that aims is to enact intersectional social justice by asking students to explore and experiment with how typography can be used to express the meaning of a quote of their choosing, around the issues of identity.
The aim is to diversify the curriculum of graphic design and typography within my teaching, to welcome and learn from alternative knowledge bases and views of communities from outside of the Western canon of art and design, and to nurture alternative perspectives and approaches to the subject and discipline of typography.
The teaching sessions will take place during Stage 2 of BAGCD (second year), during a 4/5 week block titled ‘Expressive Typography’. This is an adaption of an existing GCD Practices task and balances equipping students with practical and technical knowledge, theory and skills with encouraging students to explore, experiment and critique established forms of visual communication.
In the first iteration of this intervention the brief asks students consider their own positionality / intersectional identity when choosing a quote and therefore how they design an effective typographic approach to communicate it (see blog post: ‘Intervention (version 1)’). After receiving feedback from colleagues and students, I have adapted this approach (see blog post: ‘Intervention (version 2)’), mainly to avoid students being required to “reveal hidden parts of their identity which leads to vulnerability and unpredicted exposure” (Thomas, 2022).
The second iteration asks students to choose a quote that they like and has meaning for them, and to also choose an audience/community they would like to share the quote with. They are then asked to research the author and the context of the quote and reflect upon the positionality / identity of the author and their chosen audience and to consider their own positionality in relation to this. This means that students explore positionality and intersectionality from the perspective of their role as a graphic designer (someone who typically is employed to communicate other people’s messages). It also means they don’t have to make their own identity the main focus of the project.
Training for staff would be around intersectionality, privilege, and being mindful of students’ own identities, that they may not wish to reveal. Resources would be the usual class /teaching resources that we have in place already.
Why and how is it inclusive? Include references that cite critical pedagogy, social justice theories and data that supports your designs
This intervention seeks to make a contribution to addressing the attainment gap between Home BAME / International students and Home white students on the BA Graphic Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. Current UAL statistics show attainment for Home White students is 90%, Home BAME is 81% International 80% (UAL, 2022/23).
The intervention aims to promote inclusivity by valuing / amplifying voices (both textual and typographic) from outside of the dominant White Eurocentric perspective. This may include issues around race, but also other aspects of intersectional identity, positionality and bias. Students will be encouraged to consider how multiple aspects of identity intersect, addressing “the need to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed” (Crenshaw, 1991). Depending on the quotes chosen, this might include aspects of faith, disability, gender and a multitude of other aspects of intersectional identity.
It is important to acknowledge that there is power in the classroom, created by the location and history of the institution, the tutor, and percentage of white European students in the class. There is an invisibility to white privilege, Peggy Macintosh refers to as “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks.” (1988). This undoubtedly benefits white, male students in the teaching environment, particularly in retaliation to typography as their viewpoint is consistently backed up by the curriculum. Rhianna Garrett describes this as “Whiteness is more than an optical privilege but an ‘ecology of hostile structures and practices that shape what we consider to be daily norms” (Garrett, p.3). It is important to create a teaching environment that doesn’t “maintain the illusion of inclusion, but in reality, serves to preserve white, middle-class models of knowledge, expertise and value (Mukherjee 2022).
The task coupled with class discussion and tutor feedback encourages and values exploration of knowledge and typographic approaches from communities outside of the Western design canon. By providing a broad set of visual and textual references (see blog post: ‘Intervention (slides)’) and through rewarding experimentation and critique of the Eurocentric perspective on typography, we will aim to create an environment where all viewpoints are seen as equal and avoid potential epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007), situations where “individuals can be harmed in their capacity as knowers when their testimony is wrongly diminished according to inequalities in social power.” (Rekis, 780). If we are seeking to discover a new “truth” about approaches to typography, then we need to be able to actively “listen” for it, Rekis refers to situations where marginalised speakers are not heard: “Either the speaker or the hearer loses out on some piece of knowledge being exchanged, which reflects “a moment of dysfunction in the overall epistemic practice or system” (Rekis, p.781) and avoiding what Rekis refers to as “Prejudice therefore operates as an ‘obstacle to truth’” (Rekis, p.781). This learning environment is important in helping to not “shape specific understandings of what is considered to be professional, and this can result in pressure to assimilate to white, Eurocentric patterns of behaviour to avoid reputational damage” (Garrett, p.3)
The final project review will involve students displaying their posters on the studio walls. The scale of the poster format amplifies the message and as Christine Sun Kim states in her video “scale equals visibility, that has the ability to shape social norms”. This also relates to Paralympian Ade Adepitan’s interview, where he states the importance of providing tools and opportunities that “gives people opportunities to shine”. Idea of giving students a platform, if they wish, to explore their identity through the subject, or the identity of the author / audience. The format of the poster, and its historical connections to protest, raising awareness, creates an appropriate platform for ‘giving voice’ to issues of social justice, beginning in the classroom but suggesting how graphic design and typography is a powerful tool for speaking out / raising awareness / protest / changing opinion.
There are questions that come up in my research into Critical Race Theory that suggest that attainment gap is not only caused by acts of individuals in classrooms, but wider issues to do with institutional policy, that may include how assessments are carried out, how students are labelled in terms of ‘EAL’ students (English as an additional language) and the bias this creates in assessments as the student progresses through the course, this label stays with them and “operates as a self-reinforcing mechanism for maintaining disparities in attainment” (Bradbury, p.244).
This relates to bell hooks writing about art criticism and race and how minorities need to be given the platform and the security to express opinions and speak critically about the work of others, for art criticism and art practice to develop
How have you reflected on feedback from peers, colleagues, students on your idea? Where possible, include how the intervention impacted inclusive teaching and learning (if you were able to deliver this)
I have received really insightful and useful feedback on the intervention from teaching colleagues and GCD students/graduates. As a version of this project was delivered to stage 2 students earlier this year, current students have been able to feedback based on Bothe their experience of this version of the project and the addition of the new intersectional / positionality aspect of the task.
Catherine Dixon (GCD Stage 1 Leader and Senior Lecturer in Typography) highlighted the need to approach this subject sensitively and that students shouldn’t be forced to engage with their own identity / cultural backgrounds, as this can surface trauma or be exhausting for them. Catherine made some really useful suggestions about changes that could be made, whereby the student considers the identity / positionality of the author and a chosen audience/community. They then would have to consider their own positionality and biases in relation to others. This provides an opportunity to ‘step outside of themselves’, consider their roles as designer and therefore in service of a message, but still include intersectionality and positionality in the project.
Joles Wong, an international student who did the previous iteration of the project and has made typographic work about their own intersectional identity, talked about the nuances involved in identity. They also pointed out that identity is not something all students are ready to disclose, talk about in class, and made visible (something the project asks them to do). They said they didn’t feel the GCD classroom to be an unsafe space but identity is a personal thing that people with past negative experiences or are still discovering would rather keep private.
These two elements of feedback both highlight the need to be sensitive around the subject of identity. As I mentioned in my proposal, this project asks students to “reveal hidden parts of their identity which leads to vulnerability and unpredicted exposure” (Thomas, 2022), and therefore it’s important to adapt the project so that students are not forced to make work about their own identity.
Joles also talked about the complexity and nuance of intersectional identities and that “people identify themselves with things far beyond these categories that a visa application asks you for, like ethnicity/gender/sexuality/religion etc.” … “the concept of intersectionality goes far deeper than simply having multiple labels attached to oneself as a condition of birth. A lot of identities at the end of the day aren’t static, but rather sustained action(s).” I need to be mindful to not over simplify the concept of intersectionality, through my own lack of understanding and the project needs to acknowledge and allow for that complexity to surface.
Bibliography
Adepitan, A. (2020) Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism. Youtube [Online]. 16 Oct 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU&t=2s
Bradbury, A. (2020). A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp.241-260.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color, Stanford: Stanford Law Review
Fricker, M. (2007), Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford University Press
Garrett, R. (2024). Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge
Kent, C. (1992) Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit. New York: Bantam
McIntosh, P. (1988). ‘White privilege and male privilege: a personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies’. Working Paper 189, Wellesley Centers for Women
Rekis, J. (2024). Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account, Cambridge University Press
Sun Kim, C. (2023) Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers” – Season 11 | Art21. Youtube [Online] 1 Nov 2023. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI&t=1s
Thomas, C. (2022) Overcoming Identity Threat: Using Persona Pedagogy in Intersectionality and Inclusion Training. Social Sciences 11: 249.