We were sent a review copy of Oded Ezer's book The Typographer‘s Guide to the Galaxy by Gestalten last year. I'm fairly new to Oded's designs, but to survey his extensive body of work, as presented in the book, is amazing.
Typography goes beyond just letters on a page - it gives expression to a word. To me, Oded's work even goes beyond that - his typographic work blurs the line between the science of typography and art. His words become sculptural, sometimes just in their 2D form, but other times they become literally 3-dimensional, taking on a life of their own.
Not being able to read Hebrew myself, I am even further removed from the reality of the words he works with, making them more foreign, beautiful and emotional. In the forward of the book, Paola Antonelli expresses this well:
"There is no better proof of the elegance of a typeface than obfuscating its content. And if, as is my case when it comes to Hebrew (or Korean, or Thai, or Arabic...), one does not understand anything at all, there is no need to even reverse the sheet; the experience becomes purely emotional and aesthetic. Ah, the delights of ignorance!"
The Typographer‘s Guide to the Galaxy is a beautiful, inspirational monograph. Besides just being visually stimulating, Gestalten included a series of essays about his work (by Paola Antonelli, Marian Bantjes, Yehuda Hofshi, Cinzia Ferrara, and Kitty Bolhöfer), as well as an interview with Oded himself, all of which provide insight into Oded's design process and his collection of work.
Oh, wow!! This book looks AMAZING!!! I'm a huge typography geek. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLooks a great reference source - and I agree with your comments of 'typography and art' It's too easy these days to focus on screen based type to the detriment of physical 'mark making'
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