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By Lucy Brown published on Monday, 01 February

I first learnt of Oded Ezer's work during my final year at the London College of Communication.  In A Typographer's Guide to the Galaxy, Cinzia Ferrara writes about Oded's working proccess. Her writing made my heart beat oddly with excitement. I was immediately fascinated and contacted him to ask if he would be willing to have me for a few months at his studio in Tel Aviv. He said yes. Between September and November 2009, I documented my time spent with Oded. The many lessons he taught me are invaluable and will stay with me for the rest of my career. 

Day 1 Sunday 6/09/09

This is my third day in Tel Aviv. The place is like a living, breathing Bauhaus graveyard. The air is a peachy 29 degress. This morning I took the number 63 bus, walked from home on Zamenhof, across the Dizengoff fountain, up Pinsker street to the bus stop on Bograshov. I arrive for 9. Oded has forgotten I was coming. Regardless and in the midst of clearing away the remains of a dinner party from the night before Oded and his wife are so very welcoming. They work together in their home. It's beautiful, full of light and interesting objects. A mightily full bookshelf dominates the room.

We discuss my work. The interest in each other's process seems mutual. Oded explains how he doesn't usually take students but he could see that I was looking for some answers. He was willing to take me on not because I wanted to be like him but because I wanted to learn how to work. He takes me through the presentation of my work, explaining that I have created a world in my pieces but then not presented that world to the audience in a clear way. Moving on, he explains that I'm here to have fun. If I want to take a trip, that's fine. If I want to work from home, that's also fine. I'll work on several projects with him, the first of which is for Typo Zurich in November. The theme of the conference is Type as Art. Oded asks me to begin researching how we can communicate this subject to an audience.  I leave for the day with a smile on my face.

When I arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday my roommate, Adit Gavrieli, was good to me and showed me around. On a bus back from the market to home I saw a poster nailed to a lamppost. It was black and, the typography sans serif, centre-aligned and beautifully simple and well spaced. There was a distinct and very clear hierarchy to it. It was all in Hebrew so without any understanding of the language my appreciation of it was purely aesthetic. I said to Adit, “That small poster is so beautiful!”. She laughed and explained that posters like this were commonplace in Israel. They are displayed when someone dies, stating the name and date of birth and death, the family address and the period during which they'll be in mourning. During this time, neighbors in the area will provide meals for the family as a form of charity. Adit thought it so odd that I would find something so ordinary, so beautiful. We laughed.

Later that evening I thought about the poster some more. I realised that a purely visual appreciation of typography, not denoted by any understanding could only ever take place when observing a language that one cannot speak or understand. What if there were a typeface or alphabet developed from existing typographic shape and form only to be used purely for visual typographic appreciation? Interesting.

 

Stay tuned for the next installament of Lucy's Design Diary next week. In the meantime, check out Lucy Brown Studio on jotta and her personal website.

1. Michael Melnick commented on Thursday, 04 February

   Hi Lucy,
   Fascinating diary. Thank you for sharing your experience with the world. Oded was a teacher of mine in art school and I have learned so much from him and his passion for design. I can’t wait to read the rest.
   Miki