Performing locality through design: vernacular typography and the visual politics of Indonesian regional identity

M. Rifa Jamaludin Nasir

doi:10.67490/ijls.v1i3.1018

Authors

M. Rifa Jamaludin Nasir Universitas Islam Negeri Salatiga Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.67490/ijls.v1i3.1018

Keywords:

cultural signage, Indonesian regional identity, linguistic landscape, visual politics, vernacular typography

Abstract

Background: Indonesian regional identity is increasingly mediated through vernacular typography across tourism branding, heritage signage, vendor lettering, packaging, murals, and public visual systems, yet typography is still often treated as ornament rather than as a political medium of spatial visibility. Objective: This study examines how vernacular typography performs locality, organizes regional legibility, and negotiates heritage, commerce, institutional authority, and everyday visual practice in Indonesian public and semi-public design contexts. Method: This study applies qualitative multimodal content analysis, visual semiotics, and linguistic landscape analysis to 17 publicly verifiable typographic artifacts drawn from official sources, scholarly documentation, tourism communication, cultural signage, market lettering, craft-based type design, and regional visual identity materials. Results: First, standardized visual identity systems appear as this most frequent pattern, showing how locality is increasingly stabilized through logos, guidelines, packaging systems, and typographic rules. Second, spatial visibility is distributed between institutional authority and market or platform circulation, indicating that regional identity is produced through both official and everyday channels. Third, mediation occurs mainly through institutional branding and heritage memory, revealing typography as both cultural preservation and commodifiable identity code. Implication: This study demonstrates that vernacular typography functions as a semiotic infrastructure through which Indonesian locality becomes visible, mobile, and politically negotiated. Novelty: This study advances vernacular typography research by integrating typographic form, spatial authority, and regional identity mediation within one analytical framework.

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