Street vernacular typography in post-war Beirut
After seventeen years of civil war, Lebanon’s 3.6 million population consists of a multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-cultural mosaic. Their thoughts and various ideologies are mostly revealed throughout the urban vernacular in Beirut. They are sometimes anonymously tagging the streets of the city with slogans and imageries as a way of expression to address the public. These images show a ubiquitous and often ignored aspect of the popular culture of Beirut. They give us clues about the lives of the people that lie beyond the picture frame. Signs on the streets are part of the environment; they are a reflection of the inhabitants and their lifestyles and aspirations.
While a number of Beirutis are busily engaged in fabricating the image they want to reflect about their city to attract more tourists, others are more concerned with using text and images to get their religious ideologies and political slogans across.
In this presentation I will analyze how ‘untrained designers/typographers’ have chosen the appropriate ‘typefaces’, hand lettered calligraphic styles and digital fonts to express the content of their messages. Emphasis will be on the various aspects of typography and images used to convey its content to a multi-lingual society that is highly influenced by the West.
The streets as a reflection of the inhabitants
The people who produced those images are visual activists; without even realizing it, they are contributing to the development of visual communication within their culture, thus creating a street visual identity by tagging or labeling the streets. While walking in the streets of Beirut it stroke me how those messages differ from one neighborhood to another because of the social, economic, political, religious differences.
In every corner of the city we see parking and no parking hand lettered signs in various sizes, formats, characters, materials, expressing a need to attract people’s attention and inform them. In Downtown Beirut area we can almost feel we are walking in a European city; most if not all the billboards and signage of the restaurants, cafés, and shops are written in French, English, or Italian evoking a western fancy look. Few minutes away from the reconstructed centre of the city in the back streets, the whole ambience of the neighborhood transforms into a chaotic atmosphere: walls covered with graffiti, slogans of different religious sects, overlapping symbols of various political parties, and pictures of political leaders hanging everywhere.
Those visuals are the main focus of my presentation. Our behavior and perception are constantly being transformed by those street signs and slogans. Letters, characters, and chosen fonts carry a lot of baggage besides their overt message, and the meaning of the word. Their meaning goes beyond what they stand for. The same sign in one neighborhood perceived by a particular audience could convey different messages in different context perceived by a different audience. For example a certain politically involved person passes by a neighborhood where the streets are tagged with visuals and slogans carrying an opposite political opinion might feel offended or unwanted in this neighborhood. We can see the various vocal expressions of type, the individual letterforms and their relation to themselves, the colors used, and the layering of information represent the messages behind the text and visuals. These images are not meant to be seen for what they are but for what they say. It is not a matter of style or trend as much as it is a vehicle to deliver information and express a certain concern. Each one of these signs is a unique, ephemeral piece that could vanish anytime only to be replaced with another sign.
Beirut reconstruction
Over the past few years Beirut has formed a unique urban experience, which is slowly being replaced by large-scale projects to meet the standards of ‘big’ cities. One-off signs will become extinct due to the changes in the commercial and cultural life in this area: everything has to look brand new, clean, and somehow westernized. As these signs are slowly disappearing, looking at them triggers sentiments of nostalgia, revolution, and warmth. It maps the tension between the individual and the community, between the impenetrable personal language and the cliché of common language.
This multi-layered visual and social experience invites us to recognize the way the streets feed our eyes in more ways than language has ever done. A new style has emerged from the street vernacular use of type: a genuine one, more than just an echo of the West.
Some examples
BEIRUT: This is the logo that was developed few years ago to reflect the new identity of the reconstructed post war Beirut, an identity that cost a fortune. It is molded in all the cement blocks and manholes around the central district of the city. It represents the modern aspect that the government would like to project about Beirut. Notice the use of a steep angled calligraphic brush to produce spontaneous thick and thin strokes.The diacritic dots are replaced by a brush stroke.
PARIS BOUTIQUE: Written from both sides around the Eiffel tower, an attempt to adapt the Arabic version to the Latin characters, enlarging the teeth of the “s” to have an even x-height and repeat the curves of the Latin characters in Arabic. The word boutique is phonetically translated in Arabic and fit at the top.
BABY HOOD: Handwriting is more individual, it adds a personal touch, free expression, less limitations, it is only obvious that these signs did not have to abide to the street signs restrictions. Two outlined freestanding Arabic “b’s” to translate Baby Hood with its phonetic translation , that does not make sense in Arabic.
The need to differentiate has resulted in shop-owners for example making their signs as personal as possible. A calligraphic style is found in many applications, to reinforce the personal touch of the shop. Using English or French words attracts more buyers; it is an indication of the mark of quality of the product. Lebanese people, in general, are not loyal to the locally produced goods, regarded as inferior in quality than the western products. Signs and graphics show the city’s multilingual society.
GENDARMERIE, police station in French. A sign that remains from the French mandate period (the colors of the French flag), where the mission was to spread out the French language. There is no attempt to blend Arabic and French, the French stands out. It is interesting to note that I read the French before the Arabic. This is related to the fact that my age group were taught French at school before Arabic. In terms of the visual aspect of both characters notice the contrast of the block alphabet letters versus the fluidity of the Arabic calligraphic style.
POLITICAL PARTY LOGO. The symbol of one of the political parties drawn on the wall with a slogan around it. It says Amal: ‘Hope’. Strong impact, simple for recognition. It stands out in its context. The name is contained in a circle; it reminds us of the 70’s style logos, fitting characters into a geometrical form. The logo is strictly geometrical, whereas the sentence around it uses a totally different style. The design of the icon is simple so it can be transferred easily on the walls of the city and other surfaces.
WRITING ON THE WALL. Signing the streets with an obvious message here that is scaring off people who do not abide or agree on the terms of a certain political party, they are re-appropriating the skull, replacing the bones with the swords, they are customizing the symbol, including it in a coat of arms. They are using the walls as pages in a book, paragraphs of text written all over the walls with a red background to stand out to get through their ideologies and assert their presence.
PARKING SIGN. The n in king looks like an inverted hamza, a letter that usually accompany the aleph in Arabic.This is a wall that was build to be used as a signage system for a privately owned parking lot. The person that illustrated it was trying to make it as attractive and appealing as possible. He was influenced by digital typography, all the slants are in the same direction except for the teeth of the sin, notice the decorative elements: lines suggestive of shiny, or speed. PARKING was later added to translate the meaning. KING is read separately with a star on the left as a decorative element. The signature of the artist on the lower left.The arrow is designed with curves to match the font.
AL JAISH, THE ARMY. A 3-D version, an example of integrating the visual of a tank within the letters to represent the army, the diacritic dots represent bullets or bombs, the whole design is build around this window.
Student projects
While thousands of types in a variety of styles are available in Latin, only few are available in Arabic. Designers are constantly facing technical problems in accessing those few digital Arabic typefaces. At the Lebanese American University (where I have been teaching for ten years now) we offer an advanced typography class where students are encouraged to develop experimental Arabic digital typefaces in various styles to answer the need of the designers and other consumers.
This was an experimental project. The outcome was letters that do not conform with the rules of classical calligraphy, thus creating new letterforms without losing the spirit of Arabic writing. It was a challenging project where many questions were raised in terms of legibility, production, proportions, spacing, and use. The results were unique typefaces that mainly target a young audience. The students were encouraged to break the traditional constraints and explore new approaches to design practical, contemporary typefaces.
Vernacular as design inspiration
Through seeing this visual diversity we sense the parameters of the visual language that shapes our vision. What is now will keep changing, shifting, finding, and new ways of pushing the signs further. This chaotic mixture of visual patterns provides great source material for Arabic type designers.
Graphic designers are inspired by the variety of the city vernacular around them; they will eventually reshape, recycle, reformat or even revolt against those signs. They will in this sense build up a local visual language to convey their thoughts and differences.
I see the influence of the West in design as a positive influence as long as the Beirutis’ cultural heritage is not lost. For graphic designers the West is equivalent to modernity. An attempt to modernize design in Lebanon should not be an Arabic version of the western design. I believe the challenge for Lebanese designers will be to attempt to create visual solutions that could be influenced by the West without losing their identity.
Yasmine Taan has a MA degree in communications design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is currently the co-ordinator of the graphic design program at the Lebanese American University in Beirut where she teaches as an assistant professor on the undergraduate courses. Yasmine has lectured widely in the UK, North America and the Arab States and published in the magazine Sign Middle East. She has also illustrated eight recently published Arabic childrens’ books.