Tel Aviv typographer Yanek Iontef was presented with a series of printed photographs of Hebrew typography from the streets of Tel Aviv at the Typomania festival held in Ulan-Ude, capital of the Republic of Buryatia, in September 2021.
Iontef, a Russian-born type designer and typographer, made aliyah and studied graphic design at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. He has taught typography and type design at the Bezalel Academy and Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. In 1994 Yanek founded Fontef, an independent type foundry. Yanek Iontef’s typefaces can be seen almost anywhere across Israel, on billboards, presentations, commercial advertisements, and also as part of various corporate identities.
The Typomania festival is an art bridge between east and west, between modern typography and traditional Buryat-Mongolian calligraphy. Exhibitions, lectures and master classes were held in Ulan-Ude at the Pioneer shopping and recreation center and other city venues, as well as in Ust-Barguzin and Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). Festival participants included designers, calligraphers, publishers and researchers from Buryatia, Mongolia, Moscow, the United States and Israel. More than two and a half thousand visitors attended festival events.
The Typomania festival has been held since 2012. Every year, Russian and foreign designers share their experiences and discuss type culture and graphic design. In 2018, the festival expanded beyond the borders of Moscow for the first time, enabling a broader attendance in cities throughout Russia. As part of the festival’s design campaign, dozens of designers from around the world, using the visual language of the poster, revealed the central theme of the festival in entirely different contexts, from geographical to political. What is the East, and what is the West for each of us? Where is the starting point? The participants in the project – well-known graphic designers – interpreted the given topic in their own way, putting recognizable symbols and deep personal experiences into their work.
