Case Studies
Ilya: A Cyrillic Variable Font
Ilya is a high contrast Cyrillic display typeface for the Russian alphabet. Ilya’s inspiration comes from traditional Orthodox Glagolitic engravings. Intended for editorial, design and art spaces, Ilya combines old and new concepts in order to function in both traditional and contemporary contexts. Ilya’s type specimen features its typographic highlights, two print applications and one web application. For now, Ilya is strictly Russian and does not yet support other Cyrillic or Latin alphabets.
Resisting Erasure
“Resisting Erasure” is a research driven web-based editorial experience that attempts to understand the impact of slavery’s efforts to erase African identity through the examination of a Guyanese archetype: the Saga Boy. The Saga Boy is a hyper-masculine posture. A man that wears fashionable designer (or knock-off) clothing despite his financial situation, doesn’t care for academics, seeks female attention and does little else than pose, party and sleep with women, all in an effort to appear strong, validate his masculinity and ultimately, to be seen.
I consulted a number of literary sources to support my thesis, including, “Simulacra and Simulation” by Jean Baudrillard and “Cool Pose: The Dilemma of Black Manhood in America” by Richard Majors & Janet Mancini Billson. After conceptually supporting my hypothesis, I began to conduct visual research. I pulled historical images from sources such as the National British Archives and contemporary images from the Instagram pages of musical artists. Because Instagram is a platform for self-representation and gloating, the images that I retrieved added a new layer of meaning. During my Instagram search, I noticed a striking similarity between Guyanese, Jamaican and American artists. From this point, I began to explore hegemony’s role in the construction and maintenance of the contemporary Saga Boy image.
