Arts Thread

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a high-profile social issue affecting one in three women; it was recently described as an ‘endemic problem’ (Warren, 2025). Sexual harassment is disproportionately experienced by younger age groups. Younger audiences’ accessibility to social media means they can be bombarded with videos of misogynistic male influencers sharing hateful and harmful ideas and attitudes towards females. My publication explores the messages these influencers share with their audiences, alongside speeches by influential women highlighting its prevalence and importance of society addressing VAWG. Aim: To bring attention to both the role that social media plays in the increase of misogynistic and harmful behaviour towards women with the rise in popularity of misogynistic male influencers, while celebrating influential women in the space bringing awareness to and challenging the societal issue. Inspiration: Solitude of Self’ by Selina Kehuan Wu was the main source of inspiration for the piece, as the focus of my publication is the effect of social media on the issue. Wu’s typography spans the double-page spreads and is partially cut off by the edge of the page creating the illusion of scrolling. Design: The female voices are presented on A3 paper and two relevant words printed using luminous pink Riso ink to highlight their significance and communicate their powerful tone of voice. The male perspective is presented in a traditional newspaper format only using black Riso ink to visually communicate the outdated views being shared.

Malorie Blackman’s novel is a contemporary exploration of racism, segregation and equality representing young people of colour to an equal extent for perhaps the first time. An alternate history, with Black people presented as the superior race and white people considered second–class citizens. Aim: To educate young, impressionable audiences on historic events of the civil rights movement, relating fictional events from the novel to factual events that occurred during this significant period of history. Inspiration: A publication bringing attention to the divide and inequality depicted within the novel that reflects society and disappointingly continues to be relevant today. Interpretation: Malorie Blackman’s concept of reversing the norm and the text presentation style of the Black Panther Party’s newsletter, 4 columns on each page. Design: My A3 publication uses typography, colour and imagery to create a powerful tone of voice. The typefaces establish a typographic link between the context of the piece and the visuals. Martin, the display font, designed by the font foundry, Vocal Type, is a sans serif font inspired by the 1968 ‘I AM A MAN’ civil rights posters carried by sanitation workers during their strike.

A member of the student team responsible for planning the exhibition through to execution of the event and formatting the marketing catalogue. We titled the show, Draw Move Type View, to represent the four graduate pathways. The typeface I designed was chosen to represent the Graphic Design pathway and featured throughout the exhibition show. Aim: To create an exhibition representing and celebrating all students who completed the course, highlighting their strengths and showcasing all pathways equally. Interpretation: To ensure an original typeface was created for each pathway; Graphic design, Motion design, Photography and Illustration, visually representing each catagory. Inspiration: My Graphic Design typeface was inspired by the modular grids often used in the discipline, each letter is created within a square. Design: As a group, we curated a series of statement words to accompany the crafting of a unique typeface encompassing the distinctive characteristics of the four pathway practices. These words were displayed on a large scale in the fonts designed by the students at various points throughout the exhibition behind students’ work.

Achieve diversity in all aspects of design: Historically, white men have dominated the design industry. Only recently, more women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people from different ethnic backgrounds have entered the field. The collective approach of a diverse design team brings diversity to the design process and outcomes, helping to reach broader audiences. Diversity within design involves reflecting a variety of personal experiences, backgrounds, skills and helps to achieve the goal of outcomes reaching broader audiences.This helps to create more inclusive designs facilitating effective communication with diverse communities. Aim: To communicate designers’ social responsibility to create visuals bringing attention to and educating audiences on current social issues. Achieving this recognises the importance of design being inclusive and diverse for everyone in society to feel valued and heard. Design: Extended the four-word phrase to reflect myh focus on inclusivity and diversity. Partical presentation of the letters communicates the impact of the phrase in erasing significant parts of a persons identity. The negative, but potentially unintended, consequence of the seemingly positive phrase, ‘I don’t see colour’, is highlighted by the typography and monochromatic colour scheme of my flag. These four simple words erase significant parts of a person’s identity.