Pouya Jahanshahi The 1977 Iranian revolution and the downfall of the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran marked a drastic turn for Iranian society and culture. Including this upheaval was a search for a post-revolutionary Iranian identity, perceived as an essential revolutionary endeavor. The Islamic Republic’s slogan “Not of West, Not of East, Just Islamic Republic” soon replaced the nationalist yearnings, dissecting the revolutionary movement. The US embassy hostage crisis (1979), followed by the Iran-Iraq war (1980), resulted in political and cultural isolation from the international community, further sparking an intrinsic search for a national identity from all perspectives but perhaps most adamantly on that visual and cultural realm.
On one hand, admiration for the Islamic framework brought forth calligraphic and script-based innovations. At the same time, designers reached beyond the religious curtain, to the realm of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of the early 1900s and associated with the birth of Iranian printing and publication industries. Lastly, a new generation chose to break from the traditions of the past and innovate in uncharted territories of dimensionality and fractured Perso-Arabic forms.
This presentation offers a survey of these parallel and contrasting movements, exposing their roots and productions. Through case studies, anecdotal information, and narratives their productions are framed as yearning for the formation of Iranian Typographic identity.