Jazz Speaks
Jazz Speaks, the final major project of my MA graphic design course at Kingston School of Art, is a side discussion of what is jazz in the contemporary context, the conclusion can be considered an indirect, scoped response to this discussion. From the perspective of the staged visual conclusion, it also explores the conflict between the Eurocentrization and the de-Europeanisation of jazz’s identity in the process of modernization.
The Way Modern Jazz Speaks
The Way Modern Jazz Speaks is one of the outcomes of Jazz Speaks. It is a large-scale paper strip with the conclusion of the project “The way modern jazz speaks is communication rather than presentation.” printed in Jazz Speaks Font, which is also one of the outcomes of Jazz Speaks.
Jazz Speaks Font
Jazz Speaks Font is the main outcome of Jazz Speaks. It experiments with ligatures to visualize call-and-response patterns in jazz, each letter has different shape changes after different letters. The call-and-response pattern is one that originated in Africa and was used by African-Americans in work songs, and has become one of the cores of modern jazz. Its geometrically abstract shape was influenced by various modernist graphic designers over the last century, such as Reid Miles and S. Neil Fujita.