2020

Picong

Picong is a typeface that is the product of a research creation project surrounding the concept of language and text as mediums. Picong is a reaction to the academic text The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan. The text displayed is a translation of an excerpt of McLuhan’s words; written by a privileged white academic for other privileged white academics, into the words and perspective of someone who speaks Trinidadian Creole; a dialect of the working class, and one that would be scoffed at if used in a “high-brow” academic setting. The letterforms themselves are based on Trinidadian hand painted signage.

McCluhan’s original quote is as follows:

"We are as numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture".