Adi Stern about the case of Hebrew typeface design during the 1950s. From the 2013 ATypI conference in Amsterdam.
The form of the Hebrew letter was radically changed during the first decade of the Israeli state. During four years, between 1954-1958, five new Hebrew typefaces were released in Jerusalem. Three of them irreversibly changed the form of the Hebrew typographic letter. Many of the now conventional and canonical root forms of the script were created and cast during those formative years. What happened during those years in Jerusalem, and how type can be an expression of an ideology? This talk wishes to shed light on the various reasons for this change and to reveal its historical origins.