Glittering Gold
by Alireza Mostafazadeh


- Write from A to Z on a piece of paper with any handwriting you want.
- Scan your writing.
- Transform it into font with the help of any software such as "Fontograph".
- Now you have a font with handwriting configuration.
- How long it would take?
- Now write a word with these letters and make a poster of it.
- Do you call it Typography?
- If you write it with your hand and make it a poster from the beginning, was it typography too?
- Could you pick any difference between these two?
- Is there any difference between these two posters at all?

Although in recent years, with the creation of extensive graphic artworks in which fonts and words, both in its handwriting form or typing fonts have the major role and are presented as typographic pieces, there is a hot debate between Iranian graphics on what typography. But this debate has not prevented the younger artists to create a good quantity of such artworks.

These young artists simply go beyond the holy frontiers of Nastaeligh font by pushing a single button of the keyboard with the help of "Chalipa" and "Kelk" software, while the elder ones are busy bragging about their capabilities and defining an exact definition for typography. The younger generation has no worry of what their art is called, and they produce lots of book covers, posters, and newspaper and magazine pages, a mix of high and low quality products.

The growing attention of younger artists to typography, as a quantitative development, has given an Iranian tone to their works and has caused a qualitative development as well. But has these developments caused a prestige for Iranian typography?
The Fifth Color in his two recent typography exhibitions, called "Boof-e-Koor" and "Molavi", has raised issues in relation with Persian culture and literature which could provide opportunities for the creation of typography artworks in this milieu. The formalist view of these two exhibitions was in a way inevitable and was due to its literal context which was the main concern of its designers.

Iranian Proverbss are the title of the third the 5th Color Iranian Typography exhibition. This folklore context will make the designers to establish a conceptual bond among their design's elements, fonts and word's message. This would be a new testing ground to discover new prospects for typography and Iranian typographers.


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