Student-Faculty Solidarity, 2022
The branding of this incendiary identity was borne from the heart of the student labor solidarity movement during one of the longest part-time faculty strikes in the history of the United States: the New School Part-Time Faculty Strike of 2022.In order to disseminate as much information as possible to all 10,000 students at The New School, a variety of printed ephemera had to be prepared. Informational pamphlets, picket line signs, and zines had to be made with as little as three days before the strike began and lasted until a 31-day long strike.
The New School’s brand of red is awfully similar, but the core identity of Student-Faculty-Solidarity worked best in the mode of parody, mimicry, and alteration. The beige of this identity indicates the old philosophy that has haunted the progressive university since its founding: that this school was founded on standing in solidarity with teachers.
Martin by Tré Seals at Vocal Type was the perfect fit for this project. The typeface was originally derived from signs on the picket line when Black sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike in 1968. Against the backdrop of blue of various UAW units on campus, the red was a fitting contrast and acted as a unique identifier of students’ participation.
Social posts were also created for the campaign in the spirit of the thick letterforms taken from Martin, using a more neutral, handwritten typeface drawn from the history of letterpress printing as a radical medium.
On the first night of the picket line, hundreds of students showed up to rally outside in the cold. The atmosphere was electrifying, the sound of brass bellowing, and our message could be seen on Fifth Avenue late into the night.