An alliance of style, situation and content : the design of a typeface for South Africa's Constitutional Court

Abstract

This article contextualises the typographic project, chronicles the type design process and offers some observations and comments on the design outcome. To this end it briefly considers the thinking underpinning the notion of Constitution Hill and the Constitutional Court. It goes on to track the design of the typeface from inception to application and relates both the design process and the typeface to broader streams of typographic thinking and activity. The article draws heavily from conversations with the designer Garth Walker and from Walker's personal notes, his photographic documentation of the Constitution Hill precinct, and the working drafts that mark the development of the final type design. The underlying intention of the article is to make a contribution to initiatives that endeavour to compile a local archive that serves as an historical record of South African design and, at the same time, provides a means for reflection on current design practice in the country.