Draft:Font of a Nation

• Comment: Please look for more independent sources - an About Us page and a LinkedIn citation does not fit our policy for reliable sources. LR.127 (talk) 18:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

---

The Face of a Nation Font is a unique typeface used as the official signage for the Constitutional Court of South Africa and the Constitution Hill Trust, which operates as We the People South Africa.

Inscription of "Constitutional Court" in 11 of the 12 official languages of South Africa using Font of a Nation.

It was designed in 2004 by Garth Walker, an artist who developed the font using letterforms, numerals, graffiti and 'street type' surrounding the Constitution Hill precinct. It has become the official identifier of the Constitutional Court. It is used for all its branding and marketing communication. It is also the font used to design the official emblem of the Constitution Hill Trust, operating as We the People South Africa. For public display of the typeface, the words "Constitutional Court" are inscribed in 11 of the 12 official languages of South Africa in colours of alternating shades that were drawn from the South African flag, on a concrete façade above the west-facing entrance to the Constitutional Court. The typeface is known to represent South African constitutionalism.

Background

An architectural and urban design competition was held to design the new Constitutional Court, which would be on a central site that was selected for both its history and suitability. The design competition was part of an urban renewal project that started in 2001 for adaptive reuse of the Old Fort prison complex, which has been repurposed as the Constitution Hill precinct. All the 11 justices of the Constitutional Court were actively involved in the renewal project, including the process of eventually choosing the Constitution Hill precinct. They decided that an open competition that encouraged public participation by individuals and institutions, both locally and internationally, would be the most democratic and appropriate way to design and develop the Constitution Hill precinct – irrespective of whether participants were registered architects.

In 2003, Garth Walker was chosen to design a typeface that would be used as the Constitutional Court's public signage throughout the Court building and the greater Constitution Hill precinct. The design brief specifications pointed to a Court building that was welcoming to all people, stylistically restrained and elegant, but marked by a presence and character that was identifiably South African. This was a continuation of the narrated theme in the competition brief itself, which called for "... an original font, born out of our national context ... The font will form the text that gives direction to people speaking in a range of South African languages, from a range of geographic locations both rural and urban, from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. The font must have dignity and authority; it must be familiar and hospitable (friendly and un-intimidating), sensitive to the history of the site, unique, expressive, with humanist letterforms."

Making the font

Walker's design process began when he captured the graffiti found on the back of the doors of the "Number 4" solitary confinement prison cells, the graffiti from the streets of Hillbrow, and the handwriting of Justice Zak Yacoob – who quite significantly had never seen his own writing before because he has been blind since he was 9 months old. Walker fused all this handwriting to accommodate the idea of a Court with no hierarchy. He started the creative process by using a camera to document any lettering he could find on the Constitution Hill precinct and any buildings relating to the broader site.

According to Walker, his inspiration was to accurately use lettering used by both prisoners and prison authorities at what was once the Old Fort prison complex. He did this to reflect the typographic history of both sides of the apartheid story and the prisons on the Constitution Hill precinct.

Although the justices of the Constitutional Court had initially commissioned Walker to design the original typeface for the Constitutional Court building, the Constitutional Hill Trust further commissioned the creation of an actual font based on a signage system aligned with the Font of a Nation. A practical signage system required the Font to be unicase (no ascenders or descenders on the letters) and to be suited to cast, cut-out, form, etc., as individual letters.

Additional characters were developed, as were signage icons for toilets, a library, a conference room, and so on. The set of characters included numerals and punctuation. Certain character options were also required for indigenous language use.  Although the Font is displayed throughout the Constitution Hill precinct, only the Constitutional Court and the Constitution Hill Trust operating as We the People South Africa are licensed to use the Font as the institutions' official signage due to intellectual property rights. The story of the Font's design and execution process is documented in an elaborate booklet authored by Walker, titled "The Face of a Nation".