Michael Meister is a Swiss illustrator. In the early 1980s, he studied graphic design in Bern, initially working freelance for museums, advertising agencies, newspapers and magazines.
He has lived and worked throughout Europe being employed by companies such as Daimler-Chrysler, then over to New York where he remained for a few years. Currently, he lives with his family near Basel in Switzerland.
Michael has created illustrations for clients internationally; these include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Nestlé and Deutsche Bahn.
A selection of his work is available on his website.
I’ve just realised that it’s not very often that we’ve featured a graffiti artist in our Designer Desire series. As luck would have it, I’m very familiar with – if not the work itself, then – some of the locations of work by Oskar with a K.
In a past life, I worked in a few different arts organisations in Manchester city centre, one of which was directly opposite the Ritz where his Ooh Child work is situated. At a later date, I worked in the city’s Northern Quarter, and I walked past the former public toilet where his Hello work now lives on a twice-daily basis.
I would describe my work as graphic design unhindered by scale. I love working in public space, engaging fully with the environment I’m in and contributing to a world in which art and design is implicit to our cityscapes.
Born in Romania, (1921-2010) Zvi Narkiss was an award winning graphic designer and topographer.
He emigrated to Palestine at the age of 23, settling in Jerusalem. There, he attended painting classes with Jakob Steinhardt and Mordecai Ardon. He progressed on to study graphic design at The New Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. He was so considered so talented, he bypassed the first academic year. The following year, he was invited to join the graphics department at the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (the Jewish National Fund). Between 1950 and 1955 he was the chief graphic designer of the IDF’s training aids unit and served as head of the manuals’ design unit of the Israeli Air Force.
In 1955, he founded his own graphic design & typography studio where, for half a century, he designed books, exhibitions, stamps, banknotes, coins, advertising posters and logos. Amongst his many projects he designed two biblical books – the Horev Bible and the Hebrew University Bible – Jerusalem Crown for which he created a special typeface. He designed Israel’s very first tourism poster (included in the montage above), the IDF pavilion at the First Decade Exhibition (1958), the Victory Medal (1967), the Peace Medal (1977) and banknotes for the national bank of Israel.
Of all the design genres he practised, his real speciality was type design (fonts). He was the most prolific designer of Hebrew types during the 20th century; throughout his career, he designed a total of 14 typeface sets. Narkis, the book types he created that bear his name (Narkiss, Narkis Block, New Narkis, Narkis Tam and Narkisim), are the most popular and commonly in use in Israel. All in all, he designed five of the ten most frequently used typefaces in Israel.
In 2006, he won the EMET Prize in the design category for his Hebrew font designs.
At Narkiss’ funeral in 2010, the head of the department of visual communications department at his alma mater eulogised that, although the population at large don’t know the name Zvi Narkiss:
…most of us ‘consume’ Narkis’ work on a daily basis, at nearly every moment… Zvi’s letters, the Hebrew letters Zvi designed over many years during his long career, appear and are in use everywhere. Nearly any material printed in Hebrew bears at least one of the typefaces Narkis designed, be it a best-selling novel, a daily newspaper, packaging for cheese, the opening of a television program, a road sign or paper currency. Narkis’ work is outstanding and very unusual. He nurtured and enriched the appearance of the Hebrew letter in a variety of new shapes – Zvi’s work has become the standard relative to which everything is designed.
In this week’s Auction Alert post, one of the lots we featured was a poster by Anthony Burrill. When I did a little research about him, I discovered that he hails from Littleborough – literally down the road from where we used to live in Todmorden!
Now based down south in rural Kent, Burrill (b. 1969) is a graphic artist known for his bold, typographic works. He attended Leeds Polytechnic and gained a masters from the London College of Art.
I’m not a great fan of the increasingly popular ‘inspirational quote’ type of wall art – but Burrill’s work is something else altogether. It’s clever in its design; powerful and intelligent without the schmaltziness.
I try to say the most, with the least and connect with people through words…
I absolutely love his striking public art piece in Leeds city centre, alongside the River Aire (shown at the top of the montage above); it’s a massive 88ft high, a gable end emblazoned with his “YOU&ME ME&YOU. Have a watch of this bit of film where he talks about the 2020 project.
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