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- Title
Ismar David’s Quest for Original Hebrew Typographic Signs.
- Authors
Avni, Shani
- Abstract
Ismar David (1910–1996) was a prolific calligrapher, type designer, graphic designer, and illustrator who also engaged in architectural design and taught calligraphy. He studied applied arts in Berlin, emigrating to Jerusalem in 1932 and to New York in 1952. From the 1930s to the 1990s, he created a wealth of unique designs, most importantly the David Hebrew typeface family. It was the first comprehensive Hebrew typeface family, comprising nine styles that include a true Hebrew italic style and a monolinear style, equivalent to a Latin sans serif. David Hebrew provides an example of how a research-based design process can help negotiate the tension between old and new, leading to an innovative, well-informed design solution. David not only excelled in his groundbreaking approach to Hebrew type design for existing glyphs, but he went a step further, expanding the character set. Drawing from the richness of the Latin typographic tradition, David created original designs for new characters that did not emerge organically from the Hebrew script, such as several currency signs and the Hebrew equivalent of an ampersand. This article presents David’s previously unpublished proposals for characters that he created from scratch, solutions that he crafted in the belief that Hebrew readers would benefit from their existence. Through a visual analysis and historical contextualization of these signs, this study retraces David’s work process. It demonstrates how David enriched the Hebrew type system by adopting useful concepts from the Latin script, and how he was able to do so while remaining faithful to Hebrew typographic traditions.
- Subjects
TYPOGRAPHIC design; FONTS &; typefaces; CALLIGRAPHY; ITALIC type; DAVID, Ismar
- Publication
Visible Language, 2019, Vol 53, Issue 1, p51
- ISSN
0022-2224
- Publication type
Article