29LT Poster Series
Poster series created by renowned Iranian graphic designer Reza Abedini, showcasing various typefaces by 29Letters.
Since we wanted the posters to be a collaborative effort between Abedini’s (graphic designer) and my (type designer) skills, Abedini had full freedom to play with the fonts and create unique visuals, instead of just designing the posters to showcase the fonts. Abedini wanted the posters to stand by themselves as unique visual items and not only as typographic products promoting a certain set of fonts.
A human figure was introduced in each poster to interact with the typeface displayed. A young Arabic literature expert, Hussein Nasseeddine, gave Abedini a set of phrases and quotes written by several renowned Arabic poets and writers such as Illias Khoury, Hassan Dawood, Mahmoud Darwish, among others. In each poster, the selected text, the human silhouette, and one of 29LT fonts were meticulously chosen to create the right visual aspect of the poster.
The 29LT posters were made available for the first time at Nuqat Design conference 2014 via The Yard bookstore. See the 29LT Blog for more information.
The 29LT Zeyn typeface is very delicate and reflects elegance and grace. Its extremely high contrast had to be displaced in a big size to reveal the intricacy of its outline. A silhouette of a determined, focused man in a precise outfit and elegant atmosphere is illustrated with a thin line and black mass reflecting the elegance and contrast of the typeface. Abedini chose the quote from Hassan Dawood, “I always want to have something to see, like I am watching something, to be able to write. Only then, when I am describing what I see, I find myself in writing.”
The 29LT Zarid typeface is very robust and echoes seriousness. Its black edgy pen strokes contrast sharply with the white space within and around them. Abedini chose to work with the quote of Mahmoud Darwish, “The Truth is white, so write it in the ink of crow. And the Truth is black, so write about it with the light of the mirage” to reflect the seriousness of the type design and the humanistic idea of Black and White. The font was outlined and overlaid with a pattern of striped lines reflecting the vagueness of black or white truth. The typographic visual was emphasized with a figure of a speechless woman and that of a superior woman with a loud voice coming from inside her.
The 29LT Massira typeface is a freehand type inspired from the political graffiti writings in Beirut. Abedini chose a revolutionary satirical quote from Mohammad Al Maghout “What is the benefit in being able to write anything in this world, when you are unable to change anything in it.” The human figure is taken from a screen shot of a woman from a political movie. She represents the revolutionary ideas of women even when they are shown to be calm in statues.
