I listen to NPR at work. On February 14, a report came over the air that the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, had been killed by a car bomb in central Beirut. I had just purchased tickets to fly to Lebanon for the Typo.Graphic.Beirut conference scheduled in April. Non-refundable tickets being cheaper, I opted for those. “Best 400 euros you ever spent,” I thought throughout the rest of the day.
Something about the grassroots protests organized over the next few weeks by young Lebanese struck a cord with me. Coming on the heels of the election in Ukraine, it seemed as if popular protests — of which I am generally skeptical — really could make a difference. Despite the four more bombings over the next six weeks, I was relieved when the long-awaited conference did take place.
The typographic conference was the first of its kind in the Middle East. In light of similar locally-organized conferences in Sao Paolo and Thessaloniki, it seems as if a new trend has appeared on the global typographic scene: internationally organized conferences, like ATypI and TypeCon, are being augmented by a new series of regional contenders (even the massive TYPO Berlin has a far more regional than international audience, but that is a different discussion). While the last ATypI conference had around 350 registrants, Typo.Graphic.Beirut had over 800. Granted, most attendees in Beirut were students from Lebanon or nearby countries, and the conference was free — nevertheless, the quality of the speaker list was on par.
Organized and hosted by the Lebanese American University, Typo.Graphic.Beirut had a distinct local flavor. Aside from the Lebanese national anthem playing at the conferences opening, five of the 23 lectures focused either directly or indirectly on Arabic typography and type design. Five speakers were Beirut natives, although four of them currently reside outside of Lebanon. The rest of the conferences lectures presented foreign perspectives, which in essence was a boon for the large number of student attendees. Who needs to travel large distances to hear such a diverse number of opinions, when all of the speakers are willing to come directly to you?
While I wont cover the entire conference in this space, several topics do deserve specific mention. The most impressive lecture, in my opinion, was from Reza Abedini. Abedini is a graphic designer and AGI member from Iran. In his one-hour lecture, he showed a dizzying array of posters and magazine spreads that represent a powerful corpus of contemporary Iranian design. Heavily influenced by the lyricism and composition of Persian design from previous centuries, Adedinis work — which almost exclusively uses the Arabic script — is a body of Concrete Typographic expression and form that is most likely unmatched in either the East or the West. I was previously unfamiliar with his work, which I regret now tremendously.
Early on in the conference, Bruno Steinert explained the licensing concept behind fonts. Nothing new to Typographica readers, these details were a necessary ingredient of the conference as far as organizers must have been concerned. Font piracy in the Middle East is so rampant that its scale cannot even be compared with the Wests. Steinerts explanation of the business side of type design was the first exposure that listening students would have ever had to this topic, many of which would like to publish fonts themselves, and who would certainly appreciate their rights as designers to be respected.
It was said during the conference that Arabic typography was still in its childhood; it could grow up to be any number of different things. I thought that this notion was most readily apparent during Filip Blazeks introduction of his Diacritics Project. Listening to Blazek, I thought, “this level of detail and complexity in type design, the difference between an s comma and an s cedilla, are exactly the sort of future that Arabic type designers have to look forward to when their profession comes of age.”
Nadine Chahine formally announced Linotypes first Arabic Type Design Competition. Similar to previous Linotype contests, this is open to any designer interested in releasing typefaces through the Linotype Library. In addition to licensing agreements and exposure, there are several cash prizes that will be made available to the winners.
Also announced was that a second Arabic-focused design conference is being organized: in March 2006, a conference dedicated to Arabic Typography and Calligraphy will take place at the
Lastly, the star of the conference may have been the city itself. I did not know what to expect before arriving in Beirut. I was vaguely aware that the city had been known as the Paris of the Middle East before the destruction of their 19751990 civil war. Largely recovered, Beirut is a Mediterranean gem, and literal crossroads between European and Arab culture. I was most surprised by three things: first, the high level of French fluency (sadly, a language that I do not speak). Second, the acceptance of the US Dollar, which is almost legal tender there. Lastly, there was a lot of Latin lettering throughout the city, although Arabic is the dominant script form. I havent even mentioned the cuisine — the food that we ate during the conference was so delicious and diverse that it warrants its own report. But your best bet would be to travel to Beirut, and experience what it has to offer for yourself.
Jean François Porchez has posted seven pages of photos from Typo.Graphic.Beirut on his blog.
The democratic movement in Lebanon has inspired me as well. Anyone interested in finding out more about the day-to-day struggles of the democratic activists in Beirut should visit Pulse of Freedom, a blog set up and maintained in a tent city in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square. It’s inspirational stuff.
Hey Dan. Nice little report. Glad you liked my home town – it’s really special, isn’t it. I had high expectations of the conference (and the food!) and they were met. What surprised me though was the level of involvement of the students: they were really into it all – very encouraging. And the origanizers made it all as sweet and smooth as knefeh syrup. And could you believe the stuff we ate at Nathalie’s get-together?! That was good even by Lebanese standards.
My favorite talk? I actually thought yours was really good! But yes, Reza’s was pretty inspirational, even for somebody like me who doesn’t use type too much. Plus I hope people are revved up about the Linotype contest. It does all feel like a big engine building up steam.
As for the political situation, it’s notable that fundamentalism is largely absent on both sides: the Loyalists know they have to implement an orderly partial retreat, while the Opposition knows the limits of its credibility and the need to treat the Shee’a fairly. Personally, after seeing all the photos of the Gucci Revolution and Prada Power (now replaced by affluent Maronite urchins in quite a chic tent city…) I was relieved to see that most Lebanese have still retained the understanding they gained from the war: that in politics nobody is innocent; and it’s much easier to tame Syria than it will be to keep the US out.
Lebanon is like those trees in JF’s photos. BTW, I’ll share my own photos soon – although they’re not nearly as numerous… or as good!
hhp
You can see [the decent among] my photos via
this thread…
hhp
I thought I was deftly directing traffic, but I forgot to take into account that Typophile is in a cocoon, transforming… So
here is the direct link.
hhp
As a Lebanese graphic designer attemting to find (paid) work in London, I am sad to have missed this important event…
I always thought that coming to Europe, to a capital where I could sponge in all that it has to offer in terms of pushing boundaries and breaking conventions, would bring me the work experience that Beirut seemed to have failed at. But I have been very wrong in my assumptions…
What Beirut has, that London can never offer, is an urge to go forth: a design community that is striving to learn and to make the profession one that has value and recognition.
I am not denying the existence of a design history of the region, but it now seems, with the emergence of Graphic Design programs in more and more universities, that the profession is experiencing a rebirth; and I am almost ashamed, as a Lebanese, not to be part of it by trying my luck elsewhere.
London reeks of graphic designers. And firms are banking on fresh graduates’ frenetic attempt at finding work by offering unpaid “placements” or “work experience”, with no talk of the possibility of a permanent position at the end of the day… And you are asked to count your blessings for it.
Basically, there is nothing better than being in a small society such as Beirut, working with colleagues (for clients offering often ridiculously low amounts of money!), but still feeling part of a community that is ever-growing, and in which the satisfaction of producing good work comes from knowing that you can create novelty in a virgin market.
And Beirut is so rich in its vernacular, that there can only be pleasure from the experience…
Rasha, I was just about to pen a post lamenting how little traffic or response this article was seeming to get�
I think that you are absolutely right that 2005 must be a tremendously exciting time to be a graphic designer in Beirut. You and your colleagues have a chance to form the visual culture and style of�essentially�your entire country. This, in turn, could influence an entire region. Western designers haven’t faced such a clean state in their own countries since� I don’t know when.
Of course you know that many of your compatriots have left Beirut for other countries. I’d be interested to learn what the relationship is between you/your colleagues and the expatriate�diaspora designers working abroad. I guess that I’m not one to judge, since I left the United States to go to Europe and work, too�although, the differences between the design communities in Europe and the US are practically nonexistent�
I think that it is also interesting to note that very similar situations to what designers in Lebanon are going through can be seen in many other parts of the world. I read an interview with Peter Bilak once, in which he talked about how he felt living and working in Holland instead of his native Slovakia (I can’t remember where that article was�). I think that it is imperative that designers from these communities get together and compare notes. Sadly, at many big international conferences, the majority of the attendees seem to all be designers working in those “capitals”, making this more necessary kind of exchange more difficult.
May reverse-Latinization have as
much success as reverse-brain-drain! :-)
hhp
Reverse-brain-drain and reverse-latinization: two things that I would not compare with one another.
I’m not a big fan of any “-ization.” Of course we all know that all scripts can influence each other�albeit in very different ways and dynamics�but if it is OK to make Latin look like Arabic, or like Devanagari, then it is also OK to make Arabic look like Latin, Armenian look like Cyrillic, and Cyrillic look like Chinese!
I’d rather we let Arabic look like Arabic, Latin look like Latin, and Chinese look like Chinese. Scripts are not static, but their development is often so slow that it makes the human life-span appear insignificant. And that is probably a good thing.
A post-script to my above comment:
We all know that time is valuable. I think that we as designers would be better off using our time to learn the inherent qualities of all systems that we are going to come in contact with, and then figure our how to make them work well together on their own terms. Then we won’t see these “-inzed” monstrosities in the visual environment, but rather real dialogue. Just because two scripts are different doesn’t mean that they can’t work together. As the old saying goes: opposites attract. Also, the contrast of two or more different elements is always one of the things that makes design exiting. Making all of the elements within a composition look alike is a bore. There is more than one way to achieve visual harmony!
> if it is OK to make Latin look like
> Arabic, or like Devanagari, then
> it is also OK to ….
Absolutely not. If you were part of an endangered minority you would be ashamed to think such a thing.
If Design is about serving the user, then a script should serve the needs of its users. Since more than half of Armenians live outside of Armenia (because of the Genocide perpetrated by the Turks), and hence are persistently under threat of assimilation (what we call the “White Genocide”), Latinization of the Armenian script is nothing but irresponsible – not least because our script happens to be one of the pillars of our ethnicism – as far as I know every Armenian church for example displays the alphabet. And many other cultures are in a similar situation. Arabs for example are under attack from the West; their script can help them defend themselves. An extra complexity in the case of Arabic however comes from the need to break free of the conservatism of chirography! Arabic is arguably the script most in need of careful attention today.
You cannot design in a vacuum, oblivious to the national, ethnic and political realities and necessities on the ground. That’s idiotic Modernism.
> I�d rather we let Arabic look like
> Arabic, Latin look like Latin, and
> Chinese look like Chinese.
Which is impossible, because cultual migration is unavoidable. Which doesn’t mean it’s good or bad; for example, the stroke contrast introduced into the Thai script is [probably] a good thing, but the large x-height introduced into Armenian is bad. You just have to leverage migration properly. Sort of like how you can use nuclear technology to make energy, or you can use it to murder millions of civilians… Parallels are everywhere.
So -as usual- it’s about balance, not absolutes. Cultural migration is an inherent part of our world, but a world with one dominant script and a bunch of caricatures of it is… disgusting. Except, of course, to big business.
hhp
> There is more than one way
> to achieve visual harmony!
Visual, shmisual. One of the main points in my talk was that we need to look beyond superficial, conscious benchmarks of harmony in order to achieve real functionality. That’s the difference between display and text fonts. Between a tourist and somebody who’s living there. For all its sophistication (like knowing what kind of diacritic to use for which language) the West still fails to go deeper than the skin. What I fear most in terms of the Lebanese graphic design scene is that in its increasingly western education it will lose its essential eastern component.
hhp
The tribalism that Hrant espouses is in my view both reactionary and foolish. An attitude toward one’s own culture that both treasures what is best and is self-critical and willing to learn from others is much wiser, I believe. In other words there is both good and bad assimilation.
More than this, creative synthesis from conflicting cultures is a great motive for progress. My late teacher Karl Popper argued that historically culture clash has been one of the great instigators of human progress – the ancient trading nation-state of Athens being a prime example.
In the case of scripts, there is both good and bad learning from other scripts. For example, in the case of Hebrew, the designer of the superb Haddasah, Henri Friedlaender, said he was inspired by Jenson. But he did not ape the Roman thick vertical, thin horizontal stress. Rather he learned from Jenson how to make Hebrew less caligraphic and more typographic, resulting a face of excellent readability. This kind of intelligent, creative synthesis is wonderful, and should not be discouraged on the spurious grounds of betraying the tribe.
You read into what I write (and of course everything else you read) whatever justifies your zeal. Nevermind that I myself already said things like your “there is both good and bad assimilation” and “intelligent, creative synthesis is wonderful”…
Tribal, eh? Coming from somebody like you no less… My view is the opposite of tribal, it is global. Anybody for whom it isn’t psychologically too costly to maintain a tolerant, open mind can see this. My concern for cultural integrity stems from my desire for variety, richness, balance, on a global scale – not my little village – I don’t even have one – I don’t even really belong anywhere… except on this planet. For one thing, I spend as much time defending scripts like Tibetan, Thai, and really any threatened script than I do defending Armenian. My concern is to obstruct the looming gray blob of global Modernist, Capitalist domination. It should be pretty obvious that cultural migration is generally better leveraged by the ones in power. Harmony my teez.
hhp
Re-reading your comments, Hrant, I see that I indeed was wrong. Your views are one moment tribalist (‘white genocide’) and one moment international – contradictory.
Sorry for being human – I know it’s bad for business.
—
BTW, I also think Haddasah is a great design – although to me it seems to owe much more to 5th century Galilee inscriptions than to Jenson. I wish more contemporary Hebrew type was as intelligent (although the Armenian scene is worse still). Fortunately for Hebrew as a script/language, it doesn’t need any more help…
Also, I don’t think Jenson can really be credited with a move from chirography to typography (Aldus/Griffo deserve more of that), unless you think blackletter is more chirographic than whiteletter (from which Jenson did of course totally depart).
hhp
Hrant, I just don’t get this dialectic yet.
The inevitable result of globalism will be one script, and maybe even one language (anyone who thinks that this will be Latin/English is thinking way too short term, and needs to think again).
Tribalists should want their scripts to remain the way they are. You defend Armenian, but at the same time promote the dilution of other scripts’ essences. I’m all for keeping Armenian, Tibetan, Thai, etc. in parlance, and even increasing them (isn’t it illegal to set Tibetan in Tibet? speaking of genocide�). What I don’t want to see all of our scripts merge into one boring non-entity. Only a binary reading machine could be pleased by such.
My second to last sentence above shoul read:
What I don�t want to see are all of our scripts merging into one boring non-entity.
“What I fear most in terms of the Lebanese graphic design scene is that in its increasingly western education it will lose its essential eastern component.”
In response to Hrant’s comment, and as a general comment on the above dsicussion, I would like to point out that all communities are in themselves a merge of a collective, and this fact cannot be ignored, as much as we would like to ward off globalization as Evil.
Even though i have studied in an AAmerican institution in Beiurt, the stress has always been on understanding the culture before undertaking the problem-solving of which language to use as a communicative tool. There is no Westernization, there are analytical tools.
In the case of the Lebanese society, for example, (and this I can speak of as a “member”), it has seen the return of many expatriates after the end of the war, that have brought back with them all the cultural ‘melange’ of their original contexts. It is society of inumerable sects and religions, cultural backgrounds, a (surreal) mix of three languages, and a resulting slang spoken language that is not Arab, but Lebanese, in the sense that it incorporates arabized words from the French and English, etc.
We speak Lebanese, not Arabic. It is not an Arab language, but a hybrid language: from then on, design cannot be tribalized in a strict sense, and Lebanese (or many other cities worldwide who have similar experiences) is just what it is. It cannot be ‘saved’ from what it is; and designers must come to terms with this evolution in order for communication to be specialized, not as ‘learnt’ in theory, but as understood from the environment.
Multi-lingual and multi-cultural design for one particular society is reflected in typography for Arab lettering as well.. Modernization of Calligraphy, for example, is I believe a very important step in the explosion of any spoken dialect as language. I very much appreciate the efforts of Lebanese calligrapher Samir Sayegh for merging his love of the traditional hand-drawing of letters with the demands and need for communicative, modern Arabic fonts. This, more than a tribalization and dogmatic safe-guard of the Origin, is what a modern Middle-Eastern society requires as a reflection of what it has become…
I posted the text of my talk over on my Typophile blog, should any of you wish to read it.
ha… urged to voice my views:::
since it is a good chat :)
Hello to all;
what we do in life or in design is not the issue. I believe why we do it can explain the underlying true essence of one’s motives artistically speaking.
I agree with all of you ladies and gentlemen. Hi Rasha, your comments are much convincing and quite fluently argued.
I also agree there is no absolute truth…
Please do know that a nation that does not have a unique art or voice will be viewed in art history as a transitional era. As you know Influences are much appreciated but a complete takeover is menacing to say the least. To be an original takes a lot of stride and personal will power, on the other hand to emulate or even copy is merely a learning process. The lebanese for few years to come will have to contemplate some form of an identity crisis; well the whole design ro art community will be res shaped or may have to grow up. There are Many good work by Arab designers, ok Lebanese G.D. but yes most follow the western trend… the Coca Cola and Pepsi generation. “Join them or beat them attitude? Excuse moi ! Excuse me ! La aksod al ehana… (arabic) but I must admit my admiration goes to anyone who wants to be as original as possible and appreciates critical thinking. After all who does not want that ? I agree with anyone who wants to learn from western culture and maintains a sense of sanity as a Lebanese Arab whatever you -wana call yourself. Be, just be and work for it. please I a m fed up from rhetoric and I better remain a silent witness from now on. I love and hate the meaning of modernity when it comes to political blunders. I also adore the following cuisines: Lebanese, Mexican, Italian, Iranian, French fries as long as it is not part of the fast food chain of command:) German and Canadian beer too! that is all for now :) yes I believe!
JH