Adi Stern

Israel Festival, Jerusalem Logo, 1994

Adi Stern graduated with distinction from the Department of Visual Communication of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, then worked for two years in David Tartakover´s studio. Since 1994, he has owned his design studio in Tel Aviv, specializing in design and typography for cultural institutions as well as in book design. In 2003, Stern studied at the MA program in Typeface Design at Reading University, UK. Since his return to Israel, and alongside all his other activities, Adi writes and lectures on the design and history of the Hebrew letter. In 2008 he became the head of the department from which he had graduated.

Virus, Bat Sheva dance company, poster

Occupation Kills Us All, self-produced Poster, 2001

Territory and Identity, Exhibition catalog, Eretz Israel Museum

Fontef

Cartonnage Typeface and Notebooks

Yanek Yontef, a graduate and former teacher at Bezalel academy of art and design, is an important figure in contemporary Hebrew typography. His fonts are seen everywhere across Israel; newspapers, signage, advertisement, branding, posters etc. Yontef's importance is due not only to the large variety of interesting contemporary typefaces he has designed (both Hebrew and Latin), but also in his teaching he pioneered the typography and lettering methodology at Bezalel(former students are, among others, Oded Ezer and Danny Meirav [Hatayas, Hagilda]).

Pauza and Pauza Latin

Fontef (Yontef's one man type foundry) has a well-designed website (both in Hebrew and English versions) that showcase his great designs. Notice his bilingual families such as Pauza - the latin font has some of the harsh geometries taken from hebrew while the hebrew font has some more roundness at the corners of the letter; both typefaces balance out each other and potentially allow to a good combination of English and Hebrew text.

Strauss

Hebrew in Motion

there's a lot of motion-typography out there (a least on youtube) and it's pretty refreshing to see some in Hebrew. i found a lot of student work from two Israeli design schools (Shenkar and Bezalel). i personally like these three:

Fortis/At Lo Tova Elay (you're no good to me)

credit: yyonacho

I love Rami Fortis (awesome israeli musician for the past 30 years). I thinks this does a good job with the "vibe" of the song. the animation has a good beat, usage of a variety of fonts, although a few are quite "weird" (ugly), i see how mixing the fonts together portrays some "Punkiness" which Fortis has so much of.

The Apples/Ze Ra'ayon Tov (thats a good idea)

credit: noodoov1

Again, The Apples - awesome Israeli band. I like the use of an older-looking font, to mach the sample of an old record in the song. I believe the main font is Palestina, Oded Ezer's typeface for Hagilda.


Hachamishia Hakamerit/Bo (come on)

credit: eladshrem

One of my favorite skits from the Israeli comedy tv show Hachamishia Hakamerit, in which different army officers regurgitate different familier speeches calling on men to join the army. Nice emphasis on different font and color for each voice, which leads to the chaos of type and sound (and message).