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New fonts, more color and a whole new section – next, the website!
by Griffin Jones and Michael Collett, SF Bay View
Take a look around – the Bay View has a whole new face! Your local, national, Black newspaper of nearly 50 years is entering the next 50 – and more – with new typography, more color, refreshed sections and a unified design scheme across print, web and social media.
We took great care to maintain a sense of continuity with the Bay View as you have come to know us, and using design, reaffirm our ongoing commitment to Black liberation. This starts from the ground up, as every letter you see in this paper was created and set by Black designers.
Our new, diverse headline fonts are from Vocal Type Foundry, lead by Tré Seals. Tré has created type for Spike Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Ashe, The Brooklyn Museum and Target, among others, and has graciously donated his fonts Bayard, Carrie, Marsha and Eva for our use.
Bayard is named for civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and recalls signage from the 1963 March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom. Carrie honors early 1900s suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt. Marsha is modeled after the iconic signage of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City and hangout of Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender freedom fighter. Finally, Eva draws on banners carried during a 1957 women’s demonstration in Buenos Aires and is named for Eva Perón, the polemical Argentinian first lady.
All the other letters in this paper are from a family of fonts called Freight, created by Black, California-born designer Joshua Darden. Our new look was crafted from these pieces by our Visual Editor Michael Collett and Cleveland-born, Brooklyn-based Layout Designer Kellyn Nettles, who joins us this month.
We hope, as ever, that our paper can serve to inspire and equip readers on the frontlines of the struggle for Black liberation; and our work toward that end is centered around an intentional commitment to each other, ourselves and to the Earth. We are sure you will find the new Bay View as fertile as ever for growing the revolutionary spirit in all of us.
With a renewed visual appearance, comes a new era for leadership. There’s been some shuffling going on, and we are happy to announce that Interim Editor Nube Brown will be taking on a slightly different role. As soon as she is able, our illustrious editor will be heading the paper’s new prisoner human rights section named ABOLITION NOW!, focusing her work and writing predominantly on our brothers, sisters and siblings Behind Enemy Lines.
This means: We are on the lookout for a new Editor-in-Chief. If the fire of this fight of ours burns in your belly, too, reach out; let it be known!
And so, the Bay View continues to make Black history. For over 30 years, Dr. Willie and Mary Ratcliff have led a movement through the SF Bay View and stewarded a newspaper the community can carry with pride. Their work, their legacy, is nothing short of historic. As we move into the Bay View’s next epoch, we do so in their footsteps, and with a passion shared by people making change the world over.
Look out for an accompanying web redesign this November 2022!
Griffin Jones is a journalist and Copydesk Chief at the SF Bay View. She can be reached at griffin@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com.
Michael Collett is a graphic designer and Visual Editor of the SF Bay View. He is part of the national Black design collective Àròko Cooperative. Reach him at michael@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com.
