stuttering can create time, new york

collective video calls

We met as a collective to discuss what the billboard design could be. From the beginning it was clear we wanted to feature some kind of statement. jjjjjerome explored various typographic layouts and statements.

design decisions

The design is inspired by the work of Jenny Holzer and Alisha B. Wormsley. Both have used striking statements in their work along with typographic simplicity. We used the typeface Dysfluent Mono, which emulates or represents stuttering in typographic form.

The lowercase typography is intentional: we wanted the statements feeling warm, welcoming, accessible and familiar, like a text from a friend. We used the green background colour to give a quality of warmth that stark black and white may not be able to provide. Green has long been used in the stuttering community worldwide as a point of representation. previous billboards featured beautiful photographs, paintings and other image-based artworks, so we wanted our billboard to be more minimal so the statement would be the main takeaway.

choice of languages

considering the culturally and linguistically diverse nature of our collective, we had the idea early on to render the statement in multiple languages. Much of the work of stuttering pride and other stuttering-affirming activism is mainly english-speaking, so it was important to us that the billboard spoke to a global audience. we decided to go for the three most widely-spoken languages in New York, to complement the three kinds of stuttering. We worked with translators and a chinese typographic consultant to ensure the statement worked in each language. We also used this as an opportunity to make the statement appear slightly differently in each language, to reflect the variable and shifting nature of stuttering itself.

Spanish

‘stuttering offers time’

english

‘stuttering can create time’

mandarin

‘people who stutter create time’