Date posted: March 2, 2006

New Visual Culture of Modern Iran

I remember being surprised when I noticed that some of my favorite designs in “area. 100 graphic designers. 010 curators. 010 design classics” were by designers who live and work in Tehran. Cutting edge graphic design is not something I associated with Iran. But as I found out there is in fact a thriving graphic design scene in Iran.

Some of the best designs to come out of this scene have now been collected in a book, New Visual Culture of Modern Iran [Eds. Reza Abedini and Hans Wolbers, BIS Publishers 2006].

There is something raw yet poetic and indeed romantic about the work of Reza Abedini and Saed Meshki that I really like. I love the old school drawings of Saed Meshki. One of the most striking images in the book is by Morteza Momayez, the grand old master of Iranian graphic design, who died in 2005. It shows a man whose head is contained within gridlines.

It’s a bit unfortunate that the book does not give a translation of the texts on the posters. It is fascinating to see how these designers appear to stretch the typographic limits of Farsi, the Persian language, but to me the lines and twirls are decorative in themselves.

Quite a few posters appear to be for films or film festivals, which need not be that much of a surprise, since Iran also has a thriving film scene. There’s also one poster for a dance festival that I really like.