Out of Silence

Out of Silence was the final project by Croydon’s first Poet Laureate, Shaniqua Benjamin. The multi-generational project engaged a diverse mix of Croydon people to amplify voices that are often unheard and unseen. Over a six-month period, workshops were led by Shaniqua and other local poets, in schools, youth organisations and elders groups to capture the words of the participants in the form of poetry, on topics that were important to them.

Out of Silence already had a logo when we started working with Shaniqua but no accompanying visual identity. Shaniqua approached us to run a workshop with three local young designers, Riley Welch, Rosa Grahl, and Gavin Bowyer, to help create a visual system for the project. This system was required to flex to work across a set of more than 70 posters showcasing poetry extracts. The project was always about making the poetry shine, so we started to talk about annotating the poetry with brightly coloured pens, to highlight certain words or phrases. This also extended the theme of paint splashes that already appeared in the logo.

After the workshop we turned the marks made by Rosa, Gavin and Riley into a bank of annotation ‘graphics’ that could be applied to any extracts supplied to us. We then looked for an appropriate versatile font that would help us accommodate different length text within the same layout space. We settled upon Helvetica Neue Black, for three reasons: its boldness; its connection to the logo typeface; and its different typeface widths, from Condensed to Extended.

The colour palette, again inspired by the logo, was selected to stand out to passers-by on the streets of Croydon.

The poetry extracts were turned into posters in many different sizes and formats, which were displayed in (and on the outside of) public buildings – from libraries to leisure centres – across the Borough of Croydon. We also designed an exhibition at the Museum of Croydon using the visual system, which documented the journey of the Out of Silence project.