The Drowning of a Village
ISTD 2020
Brief:
To design a body of typographic work celebrating the theme of migration for the International Society of Typographic Design Student Assessment 2020.
Solution:
The concept of migration may be perceived to happen on a voluntary basis but this isn’t always the case.
Involuntary migration occurs when people are forced to leave their home or homeland. In the 1960s, the small Welsh-speaking community of Capel Celyn, near Bala in North Wales, was displaced and forced to migrate out of their village when Liverpool obtained authority for Liverpool Corporation’s Tryweryn Bill, through an Act of Parliament. Liverpool chose the Tryweryn valley, where Capel Celyn was geographically located, as a new source of water. The village was condemned to be drowned.
Typographically, the context of the publication has been celebrated through typographic design decisions. The delicate and traditional Garamond Premier Pro typeface is fitting as it pertains to the official government documents of the time. This sense of nostalgia is also reflected in the detailed map illustrations, which create a sense of place. The evocative typographic experiments, which has been submerged in water and photographed, aim to create a sense of drowning, reflecting what it might have felt like both on a literal and metaphorical level for the village, and indeed its inhabitants at the time. The colour red is essentially the national colour of Wales, making it as relevant as the story of Tryweryn is to Wales today.
The double line is used in the map illustrations and as part of the typographic systems. It represents the river and pipes which migrate water from Tryweryn Reservoir to Liverpool. The evocative strike-through is suggestive of the improper actions which lead to the distressing displacement of Capel Celyn community.
The concept of migration may be perceived to happen on a voluntary basis but this isn’t always the case.
Involuntary migration occurs when people are forced to leave their home or homeland. In the 1960’s, the small Welsh-speaking community of Capel Celyn, near Bala in North Wales, was displaced and forced to migrate out of their village when Liverpool obtained authority for Liverpool Corporation’s Tryweryn Bill, through an Act of Parliament. Liverpool chose the Tryweryn valley, where Capel Celyn was geographically located, as a new source of water. The village was condemned to be drowned.
The story if Capel Celyn, in Tryweryn Valley will be forever significant as the narrative serves as a reminder of the tension and complexity of England and Wales’ relationship. Although heart breaking to local inhabitants of the area in North Wales; the event has encouraged significant political development in Wales as an independent state. This is a migration story that deserves to be celebrated today, for the people that it impacted first hand but also for the impact that it had on the Welsh political landscape.
