ECLECTIC UNITY
Oded Ezer
Above: Works by Guy Saggee, Ofer Kahana, Yanek Iontef, Yehuda Hofshi,
Emanuel Rappaport, Habib Khoury, Tatiana Luxemburg, Inbal Baron,
Jewboy.
The state of Israel is 59 years old. Territory: 22,072 square
kilometers. Official languages: Hebrew and Arabic. Total number of
citizens: 7.1 million. 76% are Jews, 24% are Arabs (Muslims,
Christians, and others). 40% of the population lives in the center of
the state. 8% are ultra orthodox, 48% are religious and 44% are
non-religious. Average salary per year: NIS 84,000 (about US$ 20,000).
Capital city: Jerusalem. Biggest trade center: Tel Aviv. Main schools
for design: Bezalel Academy (102 years), Shenkar College (37 years),
Vitzo College (32 years) and HIT (38 years). Number of tertiary
education students studying design, architecture and fine arts in the
last academic year: 2,876.
There
is no way to evaluate the creation and development of contemporary
Israeli graphic design without taking social, political, economical and
cultural conditions into consideration. Israel, a country that has only
recently started to recover economically, seen a dramatic growth in the
quality and importance of graphic, typographic, and interactive design.
One point worth noting is the number of design and Hebrew typography
conferences organized recently and also the number of design portals
established on the Internet, that respond to the growing interest of
design students and professionals in Israeli graphic design, typography
and illustration. Another remarkable event is the foundation (2006) of
the Israel Community of Designers (ICD), a new professional body of
leading Israeli designers, whose aim is to promote an understanding of
the design process as well as to represent the professional community
towards government and industry. Some of the following examples are
taken from the first exhibition of this body, taking place these days
in Tel-Aviv under the title: "Designed in Israel 07".
Influenced
by Art Nouveau, the 1980's New wave, Arabic motifs and Japanese
minimalism - high profile contemporary Israeli graphic designers take a
bit from everywhere. The modern 20th century European principles -
including the German Bauhaus and Russian constructivism - that
traditionally ruled Israeli graphic design are being replaced now by a
new design elite that freely adopts not only methods of pre-modernist
movements, but also elements from traditional Jewish typography,
Islamic geometrical patterns and calligraphy, far-eastern color
palettes and compositions, and even chaotic ornamental shapes, to
create a new homogeneous style - different from the graphic style that
has been seen in Israeli design up till now. The early years of the
millennium also saw the first generation of Israeli designers who
accept presence of the Israeli state as an existing fact; the first
generation that put its effort not into eclectic surviving, but into
searching for new visual languages that will reflect the reality
instead of hiding it; a new generation that, as a contradiction to the
traditional Zionist conception, does not hesitate to communicate with
old Jewish visual references, or even religious ones.
On
their CD cover for an Israeli rap artist (2005), designers Nati Ohayon
and Dani Megrelishvili created an icon from traditional Hebrew letters
from the 19th century that are usually used for religious or
conservative designs, in order to "respect the Hebrew language, which
is more visible in the old style letters". They accompanied the icon
with a more 'trendy' logo that echoes British 1980s' typographic style.
While type designer Yanek
Iontef takes 14th century European Hebrew manuscripts as his source of
inspiration for his self-designed foundry's logo (2003), designer and
illustrator Guy Saggee 'borrows' Hebrew Art Nouveau letters for the
headlines of the Israeli Digital Art Center publications, connecting
the timeless theme and the contemporary digital medium, accompanied by
multilingual text in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
Inbal
Baron, an Israeli designer who lives and works in Berlin, mixes
Frankrühlya Hebrew font (a 2004 homage to the 1908 Rafael Frank's
Frank-Rühl typeface) with the Fette Fraktur (originaly issued by the
C.E. Weber foundry in Germany in 1875) associated with the Black
Lettering of the Middle Ages, In her book The Urban Dialogue Concept
(2006), which deals with personal and sometimes sentimental
interpretations of both Tel Aviv and Berlin.
A
strong feeling of the 1900 Jugendstil (especially Ephraim Moshe Lilien
and Aubery Beardsley's) springs to mind when looking at Doron Edut's
record design for Fortisacharof (2003), a popular Israeli rock duo.
Combining simple clip art elements, he created intuitive, bizarre
silhouettes of animals and insect parts, accompanied by text in Frank-R
hl. As a result of the rise of the Jewish immigrants from Islamic
countries as a significant political force in the late 70's, a process
of legitimacy to Arabic ("oriental") cultural and visual aspects
gradually occurred, reaching new peaks in Israeli design these days.
The post-war European foundations of the early years of Israeli design
is being enriched with patterns, colors and compositions that are
characteristic to traditional Muslim designs.
In
another poster series by Guy Saggee, Build - Rebuild - Resist (2006),
designed to act as a propaganda tool calling people to join the
activity of a non-violent, direct-action group (originally established
to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the
Occupied Territories), he draws Palestinian workers, replacing the myth
of the Zionist builders of the early Israeli state. The Islamic
patterns in the background contain illustrated scenes from construction
sites.
Geometrical Islamic
shapes are also used as visual metaphors in Amir Chasson's works. In
his poster (2004) celebrating the 56th Independence Day of the state of
Israel, he decided it is more important to show that it is also the
56th birthday of the war for independence of the Palestinian People. He
did so by using Arabic numerals and creating a geometrical pattern from
a Palestinian postcard showing the "suicide bomber" Nidal Farhat who
was killed in a booby trap explosion. In his next poster, celebrating
the 58th Independence Day of the state of Israel (2006), Chasson
presented photographed letters from sewage system covers that
cross-reference the then-painful issue of the date-rape drug GHB.
A
more poetic angle is demonstrated in Yehuda Hofshi's precise
typographic choices for the catalogue designed for an Iranian-born
artist Farida, entitled Before and After the Rose (2006). Taking into
consideration the inner rhythm of her typical patterns, Hofshi
accompanied the work on the cover with three Hebrew and Latin
complementary typefaces - Zvi Narkis's Narkis Classic, Hermann Zapf's
Zapfino and Eric Gill's Gill Sans - to create a delicate typographic
line that combines different attitudes into a harmonious integration.
A
sincere attempt to create a local style with Middle Eastern references
and Polish/French design methods (influenced by Henryk Tomaszewski and
Gerard Paris-Clavel's work) is seen in Ofer Kahana's work as part of a
group of activists, visual artists, industrial and graphic designers
working with human rights organizations aiming to achieve equal
citizenship rights for Palestinians, and for economic and social
justice in Israeli society. In his work Black Stain (2005), he uses a
coffee stain on an Islamic pattern (reproduced according to a
Palestinian guide book for creating architectonic patterns), in order
to tackle the October 2000 riots, when the Israeli police killed 13
Palestinian citizens of Israel. In an earlier work, Who Gets Hurt?
(2004), designed for a conference celebrating five years'anniversary of
the decision of the High Court of Justice against torture in Israel, he
presents low budget, one color printed posters with a word or a phrase
typed on them introducing the audience to the polemic character of
torture; the visitors of the conference were invited to write their
reactions on the posters themselves.
On
the other hand, the young Russian immigration of recent years brought a
new ornamental and even sentimental aesthetics, contrasting to the
modern Russian constructivism of the early 20th century, which has
influenced the Israeli design up until now.
In
her design for the cover of Romeo and Juliet: Biochemistry of love
(2004), Tatyana Luxembourg integrates the somehow 'romantic'Drogolin
typeface from mid-19th century for the main headline with Yanek
Iontef's Meargen (a Hebrew version of Erik Spiekermann and Ole
Schafer's ITC Officina Sans) for the subtitles. She combines them with
analytic, detailed, scientific-like illustrations influenced by her
love to traditional Russian technique called Gjel and to textile
patterns; reflecting on the variety of topics in this unique, new
version of the well-known story of William Shakespeare.
Finally,
we cannot ignore the influence and contribution of the Internet as a
medium which delivers the techniques and styles from far-Eastern or
north-European countries to Israeli contemporary design. Examples of
this are seen in book cover designs of Israeli fiction novels (2005) by
underground designer Jewboy (aka Yaron Shin). As his sources of
inspiration, he names not only free-style street art, but also Ukiyo-e
prints techniques and fragments of old Japanese wrapping papers
originating in the metropolitan culture of Edo (Tokyo), technical or
scientific drawings, and contemporary Scandinavian record sleeve
designs, "with their cold 'sex appeal'", as he explains. Although
choosing Chayim typeface (a grotesque typeface designed by Ya'akov
Chayim Levit in 1933) as his starting point for the title of the books,
he converts the matter-of-fact nature of these letters to a naive, even
childish, message - by drawing their outlines in a fake-3D-like,
immature effect.
While Bezalel
academy, the senior institute and one of the two most influential
design schools in Israel (the other one is the Shenkar college),
promotes a conservative campaign in order to reinforce the status of
Israeli graphic design influenced by 20th-century, modern European
design, there are slight, almost un-noticeable yet significant changes
in local contemporary visual language that are beginning to take place.
Young Israeli designers that share a daring and enquiring nature, do
not recoil from a diverse, emotional, intuitive, rich in substance
design that reflects the visual and cultural environment that surrounds
them.
Download the article as it appears in TYPO.
About Oded Ezer
Oded Ezer is a graphic designer, type designer, lecturer, and a
typographic experimentalist based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
www.odedezer.com
About TYPO
TYPO
is a unique magazine. The name TYPO gives away the main focus of the
magazine typography, which is discussed from different points of view
and with connection to other fields such as architecture, photography,
social science, and aesthetics. It introduces, in a very lively and
readable manner, all outstanding individuals of typography and their
work. Each issue is organized into clearly distinguished sections that
cover main theme, significant people in the industry, interesting
projects and events, exotic photo-essays and many others.
TYPO is a member of the Icograda Design Media Network.
The original establishment of the organisation can be traced back to 1971. Recently the name was changed to Israel Community of Designers with the inclusion of a significant number of graphic designers. ICD is a Professional member of Icograda.
This week's Feature appeared originally in TYPO.25. It is reprinted with the permission of the author.