Name, Thing, Thing: A Primer in Parallel Typographies

Name, Thing, Thing is a compilation of thoughts, quotations, fragments, on and around typographic intervention as resistance against the colonial embeds of typographic tradition—a pursuit analogous to strategies long used by people of color to subvert or reclaim defined historical narratives and traditions as a means of survival. Cultural remapping, hybrid and subversive form-making and discursive histories are tactics explored in Name, Thing, Thing to locate potential channels of articulation in decolonizing typography.

Part One (Letters Are Things), is a performative text drawing from numerous theoretical sources across design criticism and cultural history. Progressing through numbered and lettered sections, the essay attempts to cobble together what a methodology that actively combats typography’s inherent homogenization of language and form might look like.

Part Two (Things) borrows images from various books, artifacts, artworks, etc. to locate an expressive language, one often incorporating physical gesture—posture, gesticulation, facial expression—in the space around language, symbol and relic.

Part Three (Things Cited) attributes the images and text.

Faux-leather wrap and foil stamping.