Sign of the times

Abstract

In recent times, there have been more measures taken by authoritarian governments to enforce political censorship on words they deem as subversive. As a result, many activist movements or peaceful protests have been hindered, disallowing freedom of expression. With the influx of influence from social media trends and platforms that allow mass sharing of information, present-day protesters have found creative ways to protest despite meeting with roadblocks from the government or internet censorship. Tapping on the creativity and innovative approaches of protest signages, ‘Sign’ of the Times’ was created – a speculative design project that uses signage typography to explore global internet and political censorship. This project first aims to speculate a fictitious world in the distant future that demonstrates the possible dangers of mass censorship using growing technologies. Secondly, based on the findings of a community workshop on meaning-making, this project seeks to speculate a possible communication system by exploring the expressiveness of linguistics, icon fonts, symbols and graphics.