Oded Ezer - experimental Hebrew typography

20 Jan 2006 Category: Features, Graphics, Top Page 10, Typography, Worldwide

Oded Ezer is an Israeli typographer, type designer and lecturer. Finding his work on the internet was a real revelation: I just had to interview him! Gazing at these stunning shapes of letters climbing up walls, a foreign alephbet that got caught in a wire, or single letters literally being transformed into insects, I was touched by Oded Ezer’s powerful and emotional experimental works.

This article is the essence of a very vivid and poetic discussion about typography in the Hebrew speaking world, and his strong desire to challenge the borders of typographic conventions.

written by Uleshka

Oded, you make commercial design on the one hand, but also spend a lot of time on typographic experiments, which have collected a long list of prizes (amongst them the Tokyo Type Designers Club and the Gold prize at the Nagoya International design competition just to point out some Japanese ones). How much of yout time do you spend on commercial work and how much on free work?

I try to make it 50/50, but first of all I must say, that I try not to call my design activity “work”. When I design fonts, I just forget myself and after I finish a piece of work, it often feels like I wake up from a dream without really being able to remember how I made this certain font. It almost feels like some sort of meditation for me.

What is the purpose of your experiments?

My first purpose is to have fun. Experimenting for me means playing a game as seriously as a six-year-old boy would. However, I feel that when I really succeed in making something fun, I often manage to surprise myself with something new and unexpected. The hidden purpose of it all is to find fresh ideas for treating typography, words and single letters.

What are these letters for you then? Why letters?

A letter is something that came up from culture, it is an artificial sign for something which has a meaning and long history behind it. What I’m trying to do is to understand this process of creating and re-shaping this cultural element.

You mainly design Hebrew, but also some Latin fonts. What do you prefer?

When I was in Japan in 2000, I went to see an exhibition by Japanese students, but most of their designs used English. I remember asking one of the students: “Why?” and he said: “Japanese is boring.” I was shocked, because I think Japanese is really beautiful.

In the last 20 years, and especially in the early 90s when the internet became so important in our lives, English became so strong! Strong to such an extend that speakers of other languages often feel that their own language is not enough. I believe in the contrary, though! I think English is boring and other languages and writing systems are utterly important for the mainstream - which is English now - because they bring some fresh air!

Keeping and experimenting in my own language is one of the most important things I can bring into the mainstream. But of course there are parts where English is unavoidable.

Actually, I am always surprised how refreshing I find it - due to Unicode - to be able to see all these different ways of writing. What do you think will happen to non-mainstream writing systems in the future, then?

I think in the long run, people will be tired of English. I think the trend will move back from English to the local languages.

Some brief questions about Hebrew: you write from right to left… what do you do if there is an English word or name in the middle of the text like “Michael Jackson” ?

Yes, that is a good one! We jump from right to left to left to right and back again. It is especially funny if it’s a longer text with a line break, than the whole thing really starts to look weird, but people in Israel are so used to it… There are more and more advertisements in English - just like everywhere else in the world. I’m sure Europe or Japan are no exception. It’s like a disease.

Are there any rules or guidelines of how to design a Hebrew font?

There are a few genres in Hebrew font design: one is to be influenced by the history of Hebrew writing. There are ancient books, ancient calligraphies which are beautifully done. This is the first way of designing fonts: revivals or new fonts which come up straight from history.

The second genre is to be influenced by Latin fonts. e.g. taking Helvetica and then designing something that has similar features looking like the Hebrew version of it.

The third way is something I am very interested in: being influenced by a different, detached field e.g. by nature, science or architecture.

Is there anything you can only do with Hebrew fonts?

You can make coffee with Hebrew fonts. Haha - just kidding! There are no caps in Hebrew, only x-height letters, but we have two different ways of writing: one called print (for printed matters, obviously) and handwriting.

I have never seen designs for the handwritten ones! Are there any?

Of course! Actually it’s interesting that you are asking, because I’ve received so many emails recently from people asking me to design handwritten fonts …. The only problem with handwriting is, that it usually comes out very “sweet”, too “sweet”, I think. Time to think about a fresh solution for that!

Are there any good examples of Hebrew and Latin fonts working well together?

A friend of mind and Italian font designer Fabrizio Schiavi designed a typeface called “Sys” and sent me the light version. I decided to design a 5 weight Hebrew version based on “Sys”, called it “Systeza” and sent it back. He called me, totally amazed, and said: “I cannot believe that you solved this problem for me about how to turn this light weight into a good, solid heavy weight!”. The design process here worked as a perfect dialog, which was a really good study case for both of us.

Another example, maybe, is the “yes” designs for television. I was asked to design a typeface that would take the elements of the Latin logo and make it into a Hebrew typeface. So this was a question of how much to touch the Hebrew to make it match the Latin.

Going back to your experimental projects; one of the newest series you just worked on is called Biotypography. Small typo creatures are made of black polymer clay (Fimo), black sponge and plastic. How did this project come up?

When I saw an ant on the floor of my studio, I started to imagine what would happen if this was a creature half ant and half letter. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if nature had invented letters? And then maybe different letter-ants could gather, create words and communicate with us!? I kept on fantasizing and loved the idea so much that I immediately had to do something with it - and so I did!

The initial sketches were ideas only, but they changed and developed when they became real. I hoped to create live, almost cinematic situations where these typo creatures “act” and “behave”. The most difficult thing while working on the project was the “balance” issue: where to draw the line between the insect and the letter.

You manipulate letters, set them up as if acting on a stage, and turn type into 3D objects. How important is readability for you, then? How much needs to remain recognizable?

You need a very deep understanding of how people recognize letters in order to strip them down to the very essence of each one. I am just learning by playing myself. Generally speaking, readability is not so important for my experiments, because I believe that the first emotional message that gets to your heart by looking at those letters is more important, than the message you actually read.

This immediate emotional understanding might apply especially to your poster designs, such as “The Message”, which I like a lot! What made you cut up the letters for this particular design?

The original idea for this poster was a design for Arye Shapira’s CD cover. He was one of the first Israeli - and maybe even worldwide - composers in the classic field to work with computers. He took politicians’ speeches, cut them into pieces and and composed music out of it. So the music sounds really hard, almost broken… What I then did, was to take the names of the music titles and cut up the individual letters. My intention was: how would the letters behave, if they were this music? The final result was completely unreadable, but those broken letters actually created this really strong visual.

Your posters are very simple, beautiful photos of your typography objects. Why handmade typography? Is there a reason to exclude the use of computers from your experiments?

I love computers. The only problem I see is that when I design something with a certain program, it will look similar to what everybody else does, since we are using the same tools. I feel more free and original when doing something with my own hands, so for the experiments computers are only used as reproduction tools.

Another poster I really like is the “Chorus of the Opera”. Do you usually have total freedom to design whatever you want?

I was asked to do the poster design for this documentary film “Chorus of the Opera”, which was a very sad film. When I offered them a sad design, they turned it down, because they thought they could do better with a happy poster. Then, half a year later, they came back to me and asked me to take the poster to a festival in Berlin because they realized that the poster got a lot of attention at exhibitions etc.

This whole situation made me really angry, and I then decided that I don’t need to try and force my experiments to be commercial. That was quite a relief!

Now I feel like in that story of the old man, who holds a flower in one hand, and a piece of bread in the other. When people ask him, why? he answers: the bread is to live and the flower is something to live for.

Thank you so much, Oded! It was a pleasure diving into your experimental typography.

34 Comments

1. Experiments: If there’s money, there’s no need of purpose.

   Posted by: Francisco on January 20th, 2006 at 7:22 pm

2. Wow, that’s some really awesome looking stuff! Big fan of typography and such, Oded’s work looks amazing and innovative.

   Posted by: G on January 20th, 2006 at 7:33 pm

3. i love your fonts. great art work!

   Posted by: amihai yacobbi on January 21st, 2006 at 1:30 am

4. “My first purpose is to have fun” - Oded

   That’s the key of almost all the works: enjoy, have fun with the job, with the work, freedom of creativity in the media era. :)

   Posted by: Yorch on January 21st, 2006 at 3:36 pm

5. Marvelous! To be able to see something in our minds and then create it with our hands is a great gift.

   Posted by: Jeanne on January 22nd, 2006 at 3:51 am

6. Great work! It looks so fantastic…

   Posted by: Pansea on January 23rd, 2006 at 3:59 am

7. i just finished a class with him (actually an hour ago) being his student was a great honor and a real eye-opener.

   Posted by: NishMa on January 27th, 2006 at 1:56 am

8. Proud of you!
   Call me.

   Posted by: Gezer on February 1st, 2006 at 12:58 am

9. [...] [...]

   Posted by: 1 + 1 = 1 » buchstäblich fliegen on February 13th, 2006 at 5:02 am

10. [...] Oded Ezer [...]

    Posted by: mateuniverse.de/wp » Blog Archive » Oded Ezer on February 15th, 2006 at 12:41 pm

11. Great work!
    and i find - that this excessive experimental work - do relate to antiquity, no matter what, there is no escape of the past :) and biblical vision are being evoked by this beautiful images

    Posted by: moon on April 15th, 2006 at 9:26 am

12. [...] An interesting concept for World Cup T-shirts comes from Japanan’s creative producers Itoi Jimushou. Last year Mr. Itoi askesd the creme-de-la-creme of the Japanese design scene (Taku Satoh, Fukasawa Naoto, Aoki Katsunori, Kashiwa Sato…) to design a T-Shirt for him. Well, who needs another T-shirt is what you might say, but it became huge and spread across all design media in Japan - simply because all those interesting people gathered together - and obviously had a lot of fun! This year, they extended their idea of the T1 World Cup (that’s what the competition is called) and invited international designers from all sorts of disciplines like Stefan Sagmeister, Klein Dytham architects, Erik Spiekermann, Oded Ezer, Hamansutra, Kinga, Poledesign, Phunkstudio, Usman Haque… to design a T-shirt. Nice one! I think I have never seen such an unusual mix of T-shirts together! Those really make me want to know where each designer got his/her ideas from… [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » All about soccer ball design on June 13th, 2006 at 8:37 pm

13. Fantastic typographic experiments!

    Posted by: ヤーッコ on August 6th, 2006 at 10:23 pm

14. Each step is a Victory

    Posted by: askandar on August 29th, 2006 at 4:12 pm

15. Wonderful typography work!!!

    Posted by: yeohgh on October 5th, 2006 at 11:52 am

16. Beautiful work. Haya na’eem me’od! In an age of Photoshop and cheap, mass-produced computer-based art, it’s refreshing to see someone work with his hands and come up with something so unique.

    Posted by: Michael Phillips on January 22nd, 2007 at 5:37 pm

17. ok hot.

    Posted by: danny on February 2nd, 2007 at 8:46 pm

18. [...] PingMag is a blog about design. Based in Tokyo, it tends to emphasize design in Japan, but the blog defines design pretty broadly, and ranges across a broad spectrum of subjects. That broad spectrum, and the surprises in it, are all part of the fun of reading PingMag Some of the interesting articles I’ve stumbled across in PingMag include: * Oded Ezer, working with Hebrew typography (I can’t read Hebrew, but this stuff is beautiful!) * Stunning underground (as in down in the tubes under Tokyo) photography by Joe Nishizawa * Creating [...]

    Posted by: spiral hive » Blog Archive » PingMag - a blog about design on February 17th, 2007 at 6:10 am

19. [...] There’s also a pretty good interview with Oded at PingMag titled Oded Ezer - experimental Hebrew typography [...]

    Posted by: DesignNotes by Michael Surtees » Speaking through the shapes of typography on February 18th, 2007 at 12:57 am

20. hola… me encantaron los trabajos… muchas felicidades espero que pueda conseguir alguna de las playeras….

    Posted by: Ivette de Jesus Santaella Amador on April 17th, 2007 at 6:44 am

21. [...] Blog Obed Ezer; Hebrew type guru. Posted by Marcus Trimble on July 25, 2007 Obed Ezer; Hebrew type [...]

    Posted by: Super Colossal » Obed Ezer; Hebrew type guru. on July 25th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

22. This is amazing stuff; well done.

    Posted by: Stacey on November 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm

23. [...] Oded Ezer, der sich der experimentellen hebräischen Typografie verschrieben hat, schuf als neuestes Werk eine wirklich sehenswerte Ketubbah. Wer sich anschließend genauer mit Oded Ezer befassen will, kann sich ein Interview mit ihm im japanischen PingMag durchlesen (hier). [...]

    Posted by: Chajms Sicht » Wirklich Kunst on December 11th, 2007 at 12:36 am

24. This is amazing stuff; well done guys

    Posted by: kurye on February 22nd, 2008 at 6:56 am

25. [...] Hebrew TypographyOded Ezer. [...]

    Posted by: Breathtaking Typographic Posters | Fonts, Monday Inspiration | Smashing Magazine on February 25th, 2008 at 6:20 pm

26. [...] Hebrew Typography Oded Ezer. [...]

    Posted by: Breathtaking Typographic Posters | :::优滕|Uturn::: on February 27th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

27. thanks for subject. it is very intersting post

    Posted by: nakliyat on February 28th, 2008 at 4:02 am

28. [...] Hebrew Typography Oded Ezer. [...]

    Posted by: Breathtaking typographic posters on March 7th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

29. [...] to know Oded Ezer. Please. “dot-font: Is It Type, Or Is It Art? “Oded Ezer - experimental Hebrew typography “The Typographer’s Guide to the Galaxy” / An interview with Oded [...]

    Posted by: .: Designers who Blog: Design, Illustration, Photography, Web, Advertising, Branding … » Blog Archive » OdedEzer on March 15th, 2008 at 10:59 pm

30. this is great stuff guys!
    nice done job!

    i like the red splash…??

    Posted by: Gayai on March 20th, 2008 at 2:35 am

31. [...] Hebrew Typography Oded Ezer. [...]

    Posted by: Typography - Kiểu dáng Chữ « Khai’s Blog on September 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm

32. [...] Hebrew Typography Oded Ezer. [...]

    Posted by: Breathtaking Typographic Posters « Blognya erwin… on October 28th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

33. [...] Hebrew Typography Oded Ezer. [...]

    Posted by: 50多个经典的字型排印(Typographic)海报设计欣赏 | 帕兰映像 on August 18th, 2009 at 7:45 am

34. MERAVOGLIOSO (wonderful)
    I can feel you passion in your work. It left me speechless.
    You make really something new. I am moved and amazed.
    I have the same passion, but not the same talent. You are a genius of typography and a real artist.

    Sorry for my bad English.
    Silvia from Italy

    Posted by: silvia on October 3rd, 2009 at 5:03 am

Name

Website

• Similar Articles
• » Design and the Elastic Mind
• » T-1 WORLD CUP Finals
• » All about soccer ball design
• » Patient dogs for Ping No.6
• » Patient dog for Ping No.10

• Share and Enjoy:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• PingMag in KoreanCategory: Features Uncategorized
  January 16, 2006
• 10 things to do for free in TokyoCategory: Features Japan Products
  January 13, 2006
• Handmade to the extremeCategory: Events & Exhibitions Illustration Japan
  January 12, 2006

Notice

As of December 31, 2008, PingMag and sister site PingMag MAKE are both on extended hiatus, and will not be updated for the foreseeable future. We are eternally grateful for your fantastic support over the years.

Search