Is it possible to counter censorship with typography? Sans Control tries to answer with research and experimentation. If in the past censorship was obvious and ruthless, today it takes on subtle forms but equally influential on freedom of expression.
Fonts are a democratic tool to fix our thoughts and allow us to communicate several messages at once. Words are often distorted or deleted to eliminate uncomfortable ideas.
The aim of Sans Control is to promote an ethical, free and socially useful communication, through a clear and neutral variant, and a censored one, covered by aggressive doodles: it is readable to the human eye, but challenges artificial intelligences.
Optical corrections and ligatures were essential to create an accessible and functional product, tested even with OCR.
To stimulate the use of the font, a visual identity was created and open-source distribution was
programmed.
The answer to the initial questions, rather than in a short concluding paragraph, is found in words escaped the brutality of censorship - perhaps written right in Sans Control.
