Final Preparations Before Writing the Critical Report
This week has been about pulling everything together so I can actually begin writing the critical report with confidence rather than hesitation. I reached a point where the reading, notes and sketchbook reflections were starting to form patterns, so this week became about identifying those patterns and turning them into a coherent direction for the writing stage.
My starting point was going back through some of the linguistic sources, especially David Crystal. His writing on language loss reminded me why the topic matters beyond design. Crystal argues that when a language or dialect fades from cultural life, what disappears with it is not only vocabulary but cultural memory and ways of seeing the world (Crystal, 2000 ). This reinforced the emotional and social weight behind the project. The issue is not whether dialect looks visually interesting. It is about how its presence or absence shapes identity. This clarity helped me lock in the tone for the introduction of the report, which will begin by positioning dialect as a form of belonging rather than a stylistic device.
I also revisited Dick Hebdige’s writing this week to help with the cultural framing. His ideas about subculture and resistance made complete sense for a project rooted in working class identity. Hebdige argues that style is a form of rebellion, especially within groups who sit outside dominant cultural expectations. This mapped perfectly onto dialect as a lived cultural performance. Barnsley dialect communicates class, space, humour and solidarity. It is expressive by nature. This gave me the confidence to frame dialect as something that deserves representation in design not because it is quaint or regional, but because it is structurally resistant to being homogenised.
I balanced the theory with visual research again to make sure my thinking did not drift too far into abstraction. I found myself returning to the rawness of Craig Oldham’s work, especially In Loving Memory of Work. Oldham treats regional voice and community history with respect and emotional intelligence. His work reminded me that design can connect deeply to lived experience without losing its integrity. It made me think more about how Barnsley’s dialect might be held visually without sanitising it.
I also noted how expressive practices such as phonetic typography and sound based design might eventually influence the studio practice side of the project. Pataca and Costa’s work on sonic representation (2022 ) stayed in my mind because it demonstrates how rhythm and tone can be captured visually when designers stop limiting type to fixed forms. This research will become important during the making stage later on.
By the end of the week, I created a finalised structure for the report so that the writing process will feel manageable. I divided the report into five main sections: language and identity, decolonising design, sonic and phonetic typography, Barnsley context and expressive typographic voice. Each section now has bullet points of what I want to argue, which helped me feel more organised.
This week has been more about alignment than production, but alignment is exactly what I needed before moving into the writing stage next week.
LSJ DESIGNS 
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