Style combination · Contrasts

South African Vernacular Design × International Typographic Style

Ijusi was made against the clean, orderly corporate European look; one strict Swiss column can steady a crowded vernacular spread.

From the research on South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi)

Mix them and make something South African Vernacular Design International Typographic Style

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from International Typographic Style, their arrangement from International Typographic Style, the finish from South African Vernacular Design. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi) International Typographic Style

Type from South African Vernacular Design: Hand-lettering
Eclectic mixing

International Typographic Style avoids eclectic mixing: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Colour from International Typographic Style: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from International Typographic Style: Geometric primitives
Rectilinear
Composition from International Typographic Style: Modular grid
Dynamic asymmetry

South African Vernacular Design avoids modular grid: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from South African Vernacular Design: Hard offset shadow

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · South African Vernacular Design

New

Sedgwick Ave Display, standing in for Son of Sam (Garth Walker, 2003–04), the Constitutional Court's unicase display face, named after the cell graffiti 'son of sam now son of hope' and built from prison-cell graffiti, a judge's handwriting and site lettering, with numerals after the stencilled cell numbers

Text · International Typographic Style

A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.

Inter; International Typographic Style used Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from International Typographic Style, with a counter-accent from South African Vernacular Design. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi) International Typographic Style

#f2f0e9 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e1251b accent · 18%
#ffb612 accent · 14%
#1f4e9c accent · 10%
#f26c28 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f0e9;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e1251b;
  --accent-2: #ffb612;
  --accent-3: #1f4e9c;
  --accent-4: #f26c28;
  --font-display: "Sedgwick Ave Display", cursive;
  --font-text: "Inter", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi): Ijusi's raw material is the work of living people: township sign painters, hair-salon and funeral-parlour sign makers, Zulu beadworkers and wire crafters. The Constitutional Court's typeface also quotes cell graffiti from the Old Fort, whose prisons held activists such as Mandela and Sobukwe and scores of ordinary Black South Africans jailed under the pass laws. Eye's reviewer, who judged Walker's efforts sincere, warned that anyone expecting Black design in i-jusi would find 'very little of it'. Credit and pay the makers whose lettering and craft you quote, commission them where you can, and do not reduce township design to a 'gritty African' texture for a brand with no stake in those streets. The comics issues featured Bitterkomix co-founder Anton Kannemeyer, criticised for 'offensive, racist imagery' in satires such as Pappa in Afrika, which recasts Hergé's Tintin as a white African; do not generate racial caricature outside that authorship and context. Son of Sam was commissioned for the Court's exclusive use.

The two styles

1995–present · Sub-Saharan Africa South African Vernacular Design (Ijusi) A post-apartheid design language launched in Durban in 1995 by Garth Walker's Orange Juice Design and its free, experimental magazine Ijusi (isiZulu for 'juice'), which asked 'What makes me South African, and what does that look like?'. Trained designers turned from the clean corporate European look to the street: drop-shadowed sign lettering, hair-salon boards, packaging, beadwork and prison graffiti, collaged into many-typeface pages and new fonts such as Son of Sam for the Constitutional Court (2004).

The words “Urban Systems” appear in large black and red lettering at the upper left of an off-white cover. Tall blue, black and grey rectangular blocks rise from the bottom, with fine vertical dividing lines and a red circle at the upper right.

1950–1975 · Central Europe International Typographic Style A post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality. Taught at the Basel and Zurich schools, it became the default language of international corporate and institutional communication.