Style combination · Contrasts
Bezalel School × Hebrew Poster Lettering
The Jerusalem national art that came before it used the same menorah, ancient coins and hand-drawn Hebrew, but packed them into gilded, ornamental, biblical frames; the Tel Aviv studios reduced them to a single emblem on flat colour, and the emblem committee of 1949 deliberately left out overtly religious symbols.
Mix them and make something Bezalel School Hebrew Poster Lettering
01
What each style brings
Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.
Bezalel School Hebrew Poster Lettering & Early Israeli State Design
- Type from Hebrew Poster Lettering
- Colour from Bezalel School
- Form from Bezalel School
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Hebrew Poster Lettering avoids abundant decoration: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
- Composition from Bezalel School
- Surface from Hebrew Poster Lettering
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Hebrew Poster Lettering
New
Reem Kufi; Hebrew Poster Lettering used Hand-drawn Hebrew block letters, heavy and square, drawn for each poster and label; Franz Krausz kept one consistent letter style, while the Shamir brothers fitted the lettering to each subject and Brush-written and cursive Hebrew lettering for slogans
Text · Bezalel School
The house style of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, opened in Jerusalem by Boris Schatz in 1906 with E. M. Lilien and given its definitive form by Ze'ev Raban. It joined Jugendstil and Symbolism to Persian, Syrian and Islamic ornament, Yemenite silverwork and ancient Jewish coins to make a Jewish national art: biblical and Zionist scenes in symmetrical, ornament-packed frames, hand-drawn Hebrew letters as decoration, and jewel colours heightened with gold, on books, posters, carpets, metalwork and tiles until the school closed in 1929 (its designs lingered on objects into the 1950s).
Jost; Bezalel School used Bezalel workshop Hebrew display lettering, which combined Arabic-script forms with German Jugendstil writing and Ze'ev Raban's hand-drawn Hebrew letters, rendered in gold at the centre of an illustrated page
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Bezalel School, with a counter-accent from Hebrew Poster Lettering. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Bezalel School Hebrew Poster Lettering & Early Israeli State Design
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#f0e4c6ground · 36% -
#1d4e89ink · 14% -
#c9a03aaccent · 18% -
#0038b8accent · 14% -
#a8322daccent · 10% -
#2f8a8caccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #f0e4c6;
--ink: #1d4e89;
--accent-1: #c9a03a;
--accent-2: #0038b8;
--accent-3: #a8322d;
--accent-4: #2f8a8c;
--font-display: "Reem Kufi", cursive;
--font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}Use it with care
Bezalel School: Bezalel works quote Hebrew scripture and decorate ritual objects: do not crop, distort, mirror or print biblical verses, and above all the names of God, on throwaway items (such pages are customarily buried rather than discarded), and have any Hebrew read by a fluent reader. The style's figures cast Yemenite and other Middle Eastern Jews, who modelled for its students and worked as its silversmiths and stone carvers, as picturesque biblical types, and its programme was Zionist in Ottoman and Mandate Palestine; credit the artisans, avoid exoticising living communities, and do not present it as a neutral 'Holy Land' or regional style. It also built a Jewish national art in part from Arab and Islamic sources (Persian and Syrian metalwork, Damascene inlay, Moorish pattern, and Hebrew lettering that drew on Arabic script) in a land it shared with Palestinian Arabs, whom, like Yemenite Jews, its artists took as models for biblical figures: name those sources rather than presenting the motifs as purely Jewish, and treat pieces such as 'Come to Palestine' and the Zionist insignia as political documents, not neutral travel imagery.
Hebrew Poster Lettering & Early Israeli State Design: This is the graphic language of the Zionist movement and the new Israeli state in a land shared with Palestinian Arabs: its pioneer, settlement and tourism imagery, 'Visit Palestine' (1936) among it, served the project of Jewish immigration and statehood in the years that led to the displacement of Palestinians in 1948, the Nakba, so present it as political history rather than a neutral regional or 'Holy Land' look, and think twice before reusing it to brand places whose ownership is contested. 'Visit Palestine' is built around the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine, and since David Tartakover reissued it with Krausz's permission in 1995 it has hung in Palestinian homes, shops and Palestinian Authority offices and been reworked by Palestinian artists such as Amer Shomali (2009): it now belongs to two conflicting national memories, so do not use it, or pastiches of it, as a neutral Israeli or Palestinian brand image. Its state symbols are still in force: Israel's Flag and Emblem Law of 1949 (since 2004 the Flag, Emblem and National Anthem Law) requires a permit from the Interior Ministry to produce or use the emblem, so do not adapt it or pass new work off as official. The menorah, the Shema and Torah-scroll calligraphy are also Jewish sacred forms: have any Hebrew checked by a fluent reader, and do not distort scripture or use the names of God as decoration.
04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Bezalel School
- Vienna Secession Contrasts · Both put pictures inside symmetrical ornamental frames, but Vienna squared the frame into grids and bars while Bezalel filled it with Middle Eastern filigree, carpet and metalwork motifs.
- Harlem Renaissance Graphic Art Pairs well · Both built a graphic language for a people's cultural renewal from ancestral ornament and biblical subjects in the 1920s; combine Bezalel's gilded frames with Aaron Douglas's flat silhouettes.
- Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design Contrasts · In the same decade Turkey replaced the Arabic script with Latin letters, while Bezalel made the revived Hebrew script its chief ornament; set them side by side to show two national answers to script.
- Die Neue Typographie Contrasts · While Bezalel was gilding hand-drawn Hebrew letters inside ornamental frames, German modernists stripped ornament for sans-serif type and asymmetric layout; the two mark the poles of 1920s print.
- Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition Pairs well · Bezalel took Moorish and Islamic geometric pattern for its borders and filigree; pair the two for frames whose star tilings and strapwork hold a figurative centre.
- Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering Pairs well · Another national illumination of the 1900s–1920s, with hand-drawn national letters, jewel colours and gold inside heavy symmetrical frames; compare how each built a national art from ancient ornament.
- Kultur-Lige & Yiddish Avant-Garde Book Design Contrasts · Two Jewish national arts of the same years with hand-drawn Hebrew letters: Bezalel's Zionist, biblical pictures in gilded symmetrical frames in Jerusalem, and the Kultur-Lige's secular Yiddish children's books in faceted avant-garde planes in Kyiv; never merge them into one 'Jewish style'.
- Mir iskusstva Book Art Pairs well · In the same years both used Art Nouveau's ornamental frame to build a national book art from older ornament; set Bilibin's folk borders beside Raban's filigree frames to compare two revivals, or combine their framed, lettered pages.
With Hebrew Poster Lettering
- Socialist Realist Propaganda Poster Contrasts · Both idealise the worker, the soldier and the pioneer, but the Tel Aviv posters sell juice and cigarettes beside national campaigns and keep a lighter, airbrushed commercial finish; compare them when a heroic figure must also feel approachable.
- Plakatstil / Sachplakat Contrasts · Its parent by training: the Shamir brothers studied at the applied-arts school in Berlin-Charlottenburg and Krausz took night classes at the Reimann school in Berlin, and their juice and cigarette posters are object posters. They add right-to-left Hebrew lettering, airbrushed modelling and, after 1948, the emblems of a state.
- Early Turkish Republican Graphic Design Contrasts · Two new states in the region built their image in hand-lettered posters and state paper in the same decades; Turkey drew its letters in the new Latin alphabet, while these designers drew Hebrew letters for a newly revived spoken language.
- Art Deco Pairs well · The airbrushed products, laurel wreaths and extruded letters of the 1930s commercial posters share Deco's polish; pair them for packaging or retro advertising that needs a Hebrew or bilingual voice.
- Israeli Political Poster (Tartakover to Lemel) Contrasts · Compare the earlier entry's hand-drawn Hebrew, painted heroes and official emblems with this strand's set slogans and photographic contradictions; use the contrast to move from affirmative national address to situated criticism without implying a documented line of descent.