ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS
This project explores the importance of body language in being a means of communication that allows for inclusivity of more groups in society.
“Any form of disability can lead to social exclusion and isolation, and deafness certainly has the potential to cause this problem. As a society, we have a responsibility to address this and encouraging the widespread use of an effective means of communication is one method that can be employed.”
After researching into to body language, I experimented with applying the physical behaviours which we use to convey emotion, to type. The two letters below display how body language can be applied to letter forms - posture has been applied to the ‘f’ to imply an emotion and a micro-expression has been applied to the ‘e’ to also convey an emotion.
My exploration into body language naturally progressed to bringing my attention to sign language. Body language is essential to those who sign, as it hugely helps to convey emotion and tone of voice.
I then progressed to the final stylisation of the ASL fingerspelling and continued to build the entire alphabet. Once I constructed the alphabet, I then downloaded ‘Font Self’, I turned my fingerspelling alphabet into a usable font.
Check out the font for yourself https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YehfMU8USgiU92OiRUkv1hengCpcPXB0/view?usp=drive_link
The next step was creating a poster to display the font and raise awareness to the benefits of learning to sign. This then progressed to a fold out zine including information about ASL and how hearing individuals can make a difference in building a more inclusive society. The poster’s purpose is to introduce sign language in a way that feels fun, creative and simple. It is aimed at secondary school children to entice them to choose sign language as a compulsory language to study whilst at school.
