Lyrical Fonts at ALBA (Lebanon)

By Antoine Abi Aad

Under the supervision of Aurore Abi Nader Beaini, The Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, ALBA, University of Balamand, explored typography, untraditionally. 30 students of advertising, after four sessions spread on four weeks, presented their work to the jury on the 18th of April.
The purpose of the project was to perceive typography beyond mere printing of traditional graphic exercises. The class was divided into 5 groups of student, each one exploring one typeface through one piece of music: Times/ Pieces for Bandoneon, Evan Lurie; Bodoni/New Soul, Yael Naim; Helvetica/Magic Flute, Mozart; Gill/Take Five, Dave Brubeck; and Frutiger/Orly, Jacques Brel. The students were: GHAZZAOUI Marya, HANNA Ramy, KHOURY Elyse, KOLEILAT Wissameddine, MOUSSA Carmen for Times; HAJJ Elsy, NOHRA Maya, RMEILY Rana, TANNOUS Tonie, TENN Georges for Bodoni; ABDELSAMAD Rayan, ABDO Daniella, ABOU SAAD Nancy, ACHKOUTI Stéphanie, ASMAR Christian, BOUSTANI Yasmina for Helvetica; CHALHOUB Joseph, EID Wissam, HADDAD Leslie, HADDAD Pia, HAIDAMOUS Cyril, HAMED Linda for Gill; and BASSIL Zeina, BOUSTANY Myriam, BOUSTANY Naël, FADDOUL Rana, GHALI Michèle for Frutiger.

Through amusing sequences of interacting games, the group of Times (picture 1 & 2) treated a song without lyrics, Pieces for Bandoneon. Though inspired by movie the way things go, the final project was far different from the original inspiration, since all tricks were done through/by typography.

The group of Bodoni travelled through a 3d typographical animation with the song New Soul. Back to reality, they transcribed the animation into an installation were people can also travel in it, feeling typographical spaces.

Helvetica group pointed to the usage of Arial by Microsoft instead of Helvetica used by Mac Apple. They interpreted the matter as a crime, where Helvetica assassinates Arial with an apple in a parody of Hitchcock’s Psycho; it was a creative and funny way of connecting it to the crime of the Magic Flute. The whole animation was done with typography. After the animation, the students moved the public to the crime scene, all done with typography as well.

Gill typeface was illustrated as an orchestra, where each instrument was a letter. Executed in 3d, the arrangement of letters permits a sphere to travel for a short time, passing in/on/through the letters to land on the electricity switch and light up the word idea. The concept symbolizes the brainstorming process to arrive to an idea and it also points to the 5 minutes break when Dave Brubeck and his group composed the song Take 5.

Frutiger/Orly based their concept on a key-sentence of the song “la vie ne fait pas de cadeaux”, which means “life does not offer gifts”. The students chose a Christmas tree where the gifts best lie, and the same time, the tree symbolizes the best place for lovers to meet. The whole tree was covered by Frutiger letters “v”, “i” and “e” composing the word “vie” (life).

ALBA is looking forward to exhibiting this project in the near future.

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NIHONTEN: Japan in Lebanon

By Antoine Abi Aaad

The Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, ALBA, University of Balamand recently organized a workshop and an exhibition “Nihonten” on the theme of Japan as seen by the Lebanese. Conducted by Antoine ABI AAD (Ph.D. in Design, University of Tsukuba in Japan), the purpose of the workshop was to expose a number of Lebanese advertising students to a new culture in order to open up their horizons. And indeed, one of the interesting outcomes of the workshop was the typographical mixing of Latin, Arabic and Japanese types. The 41 students from the school of Decorative Arts, section of Advertising and Graphic Arts followed the workshop for two weeks, and exhibited their works in the third week. ALBA is looking forward to exhibiting in Japan in the near future.

A new perspective on Arabic letters

Generally researchers and writers (especially westerners) tend to tackle the issue of Arabic letters from a religious angle. It somehow interests their public to frame Arabic within a religious context.

Beautiful religious works were executed in the Arab world through centuries of Islamic art, but it is high time that we stop reflecting the situation of the end of the 18th century, last great period of Arabic calligraphy (Othman), and look for/to new dimensions. Encouraging a new perspective at Arabic was one of the purposes of Nihonten, achieved through descriptions of Japan, in Arabic. A historical example would be that of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudy who, although inspired by Arabic culture, was so original and so detached from traditional Arabic patterns: In that sense he made use of the heritage to move forward.
One of the new dimensions applied in Nihonten was the mixing of scripts: Latin/Arabic with Japanese. Latin letters through French and English, which are commonly used languages in Lebanon and Japanese language through its 3 systems of writing: Kanji, and the two syllable systems, the Hiragana and the Katakana. It is interesting to see weird mixtures of French, English, Arabic and Japanese languages through Latin, Arabic, Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana mixtures; it impresses people through their new approach of mixing types. In fact, this is how the Iranian designers are excelling internationally: impressing audiences with relatively new letters, Arabic ones. In fact, this is what was done with Japanese and Chinese characters in the last century. Chinese and Arabic calligraphies being the richest and oldest calligraphies accentuate this case comparison.

As for the Lebanese, visuals can be even more creative: multilingual by nature, the Lebanese can show their culture visually. It is a great potential that should be explored further.

For the complete series of posters follow the link http://www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex201leb/ex201leb.htm

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