I have come relatively late to the Browne report in the original, having followed the discussion of its validity and effects for some time. I don’t want here to pass comment on exactly how muddled or tendentious its deliberations are; suffice to say its conclusions are fairly dubious. I am more interested in the form that the report itself takes- graphically polished, sharp, bold and slightly unusual, especially for a government document- the only other examples of which I have seen look as if they were designed by the Microsoft paperclip.
The most startling thing about the opening section of the report is its colour. It is not quite brown- pun resisted on their part, evidently; it is closer to dark beige or khaki. There is something faintly melancholy about hint of green amid the murk, but the overriding connotation is nostalgic, and martial. This is a Ministry of Works kind of colour- the kind that they painted the Morris furniture when they commandeered the Red House. It is a military colour- robust and unaesthetic, but uniform and even, as if very well ironed.
In a time where political discourse is weighted down by sheer volume of faux-martial platitude- courage, toughness, staying the course- the resonance of these allusions is clear, and obviously deliberate. The myth of practical necessity abides in this rhetorical triad- circumstances (appalling), decisions (tough) and judgement (strategic, long-term)- all speaking to an idea of the soldier-politician, the unsentimental guy with a job to do.
So, on page after khaki page the report makes its case- in sections headed, and sometimes subdivided by massive capitals in red or black. The header font, as far as I can tell, is Futura, designed in the late twenties and identified most strongly with the Bauhaus. According to its wikipedia entry,
“Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. The typeface is derived from simple geometric forms (near-perfect circles, triangles and squares) and is based on strokes of near-even weight... most visible in the almost perfectly round stroke of the o.”
It also has a sense of equanimity about it, and one of evenness, while at the same time being very definite, especially in the sharp points of the A and N. Curiously, it doesn’t look like the normal Futura Black, in which the sharp points are snipped off, but more like a word-processor ‘bold’ version of the light original, which causes the downward point of the N to dip below the line. The Bauhaus has long been prominent in the production of an acceptably unthreatening, aestheticised image of modernism- it is the IKEA font, after all- but the radical echo is still clear. It is more so later on in the document, where massive superscript numbers, thick lines and half-tone photographs stage a faint but still recognisable parody of Rodchenko.
The third point in this politically triangulated graphic effort is the body text, in Mrs Eaves. With its exaggerated twiddles and diffident little vowels, it presents a reasonable, slightly domestic and definitely sympathetic face- a foil to the blaring, self-proclaimed authority of the titles. Mrs Eaves is a friendly little font, and quite traditional with it- not for nothing the calculated propriety and cosiness of ‘Mrs’; but in a way it is the most ruthless gesture of the lot- this is the bit where the lies are told. When the invidiously framed comparison between the fee and graduate tax is made (page ten), the fact that it is shown in Mrs Eaves makes it appear un-ideological, down-to-earth. ‘Our plan’, ‘our proposals’- with their sweet, modest little curves, and tall, slightly awkward ascenders, who could really take issue with statements like these?
Resistance, as they say, is futile.
