Book Design
From ideation to printed and digital collateral implementations
STONES AND FLAGS
The Stones and Flags project poses a storytelling challenge. Illustrating conflict and making it accessible - on the one hand designing a practical and useful book and on the other hand the essence and consequences of the action brought to the reader in this book. The need to bring the viewer to a consciousness of discomfort arising from a violent scene but devoid of antagonism on his part.
Ziv Koren's photographs are the basis, the trigger for this series of Uri Lifschitz paintings and the entire book - doing exactly that. Many of the photographs have an iconic presence, a peak moment that mediates to the viewer a sequence of points in time that join together to form a defining and historical event.
I perceived the design of the book as a continuation of the conversation with the two artists, Lifschitz and Koren - and the understanding that the value of the book is measured from the first impression, being an object that affects the readers when holding the book, in the feeling, the experience and burning it in the readers' memory.
For this purpose I have designed this limited edition book, wrapped in rough black sand paper, the title is silkscreen printed in white. Thus, the immediate reaction of those holding the tactile book cover is one of discomfort on the one hand and on the other hand an invitation to feel. as if their fingertips had touched an open wound.
As a result of a fruitful dialogue with the book publishing team of Yediot Ahronoth, editor Ruth Ben Ari, and CEO Dov Eichenwald, who gave me the freedom to create, I based the layout of the book's pages on a balance between the paintings, photographs and texts in black and red typography, which together create a structure that maintains a lot of tension and energy, one that does not let the readers down, does not give respite - conveys the horrors of violent conflict, war and sorrow in all their might.
THE MORGUE
TEL AVIV MUSEUM OF ART
For Andres-Serrano's exhibition, The Morgue at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, I was invited by the museum's photography curator Dr. Rona Sela to design a visual language and implementations for this project. These included typographic design, logotype and catalogue.
The conceptual basis for the design arose from the content of the curator's interview with the artist, the photographs of his life environment and the body of works in which religiosity and the aura projected from them are evident.
By deconstructing and simplifying the cross shape, I realized the catalogue format, designed a grid, a logotype which was also used to promote the exhibition, and up to the method of binding by a coil that seems to 'sew' the book as a thread along its entire length.
The design brought balance to the presentation of this series of photographs, and moreover, supported and created an adequate platform for making the project accessible to the viewer.
DIVINE IN.TENT, VENICE BIENNALE
The art installation Devine In.Tent is the sixth project of the Markers series in which I am co-curator and art director. A series of contemporary art projects launched as part of the Venice Art Biennale.
The installation includes 70 tents that I designed, curated by the Artists Museums’ Doron Polak. On each of the tents are printed the works of artists from around the world.
The concept for branding this project is based on the essence of faith and human connection.
The photographs of the installation and the project events in Venice and Kassel, Germany in real time - serve as part of the visual language that expresses the spirit of the project and is adjusted to the production budget.
The catalog and the case are designed from the materials of the tents; Industrial mesh, metal rings and thick uncoated paper - as a minimalist kit in blue and white. The kit included a poster, flyers, art works and curator text, as well as additional contributors essays booklets.
FORBIDDEN LIBRARY
Haim Maor, artist and curator. Second generation of Holocaust survivors. In his personal journey as an artist, Maor examines in his works the components of his memory and identity against the background of his family's traumatic memories of the Holocaust and Israel. His main body of art works explores the elements of his identity in different ways and contexts, in multi-media installations, in dialogue with ’others'. Thus, among the supporters of publishing this book are The Um El-Fahem art gallery, and Massuah.
The meeting with Maor was a process of discovering a language and a personal codex, from it and through the dialogue, I recognized and determined the right way to arrange the contents in the visual editing of the book; Making the artistic process and its products accessible alongside texts in two languages.
Intimate A5 format, held in brown wrapping paper bearing a stamp created by the artist as part of his ongoing dialogue with 'the other'.
I chose to separate the texts from the images which were printed on different papers that distinguish between the artistic work and the 'document', the accompanying articles and the references.
In the typographic design of the book, I correspond with the typographic elements that Maor creates in his works and respond to them in a way that mediates the artist's work to the reader.