Pity is Treason by Jake Chapman and Robin Mackay
Pity is Treason is a book by artist Jake Chapman and philosopher Robin Mackay, published by Urbanomic.
The artwork uses the symbols of the British royal family, such as the portraits of Elizabeth II on banknotes and so on. The cover puts them in front of this aristocratic representation. We find a background with royal motives and a blackletter typeface – Sabbath Black – which can convey a motif of royalty in the Middle Ages.
We see this intention in the design of the letters as a representation of royalty with the addition of extra-typographic embellishments on certain letters, notably the capital letters P/T, the i in “is”, and the n at the end. These additions mark the intention to recall the socio-historical context of the works represented in the book.
From Urbanomic:
This commemorative limited edition volume documents Jake Chapman’s series of rectified £10 notes produced in 2022, the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s demise, and also features a theory-fictional tract by Robin Mackay which combines a twisted dramatisation of the divorce of currency from faciality with gonzoid reportage from the longest queue in British history.
2 Comments on “Pity is Treason by Jake Chapman and Robin Mackay”
The designers took elements from the blackletter lettering on the English banknotes and slapped them onto Sabbath Black. This wasn’t done with great care. As a result, the first letter looks like a W – I’m reading “Wity is Treason”.
K-Type offers a Kanzlei typeface derived from the calligraphy on the Bank of England banknotes.