Ashkenazi © 2024 by Daniel Fain is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Usage implies acceptance of these terms.
Ashkenazi, Daniel Fain
Ashkenazi is a witty, friendly display typeface. Although it was designed by looking at traditional letterforms in Chicago’s Jewish delis, it has many non-Jewish uses, such as indie rock band album covers, kung fu movie posters, local brewery branding, or even the Barbra Streisand fan club newsletter (the last one is an admittedly Jewish occasion). Ashkenazi is a faux-Hebrew typeface. In other words, the English letters are created to appear to look like Hebrew, the traditional language spoken among Jews. Graphic designers are known to use faux typefaces in their designs to draw the attention of the people associated with that style of typography. That said, these letterforms can engage anyone because of their unusual, compelling shapes.
Ashkenazi is the common word for Jews who immigrate from Germany and Eastern European countries. The Ashkenazi Jewish community arrived in Chicago about 150 years ago, bringing with them delicious Kosher recipes that can be found in Jewish Delis. The first synagogue in the city was founded in 1847, signifying the community taking root. The Jewish population lived throughout the city northern neighborhoods such as Lakeview, Edgewater, Albany Park, and on the south side around Halsted and Maxwell streets.
Ashkenazi Jews founded all kinds of businesses to serve their community’s needs. Among those businesses were the delicatessens (also known as delis), serving traditional Ashkenazi food such as bagels, rye bread, lox, corned beef pastrami, gefilte fish, kishkes, and whitefish salad. There used to be dozens of delis operating in Chicago. Today, there are roughly 32. Jewish delis used to be so famous that they were inviting important figures from politics and the entertainment industry, dining-in and posing for photos in hopes of attracting voters and fans within the Jewish community. There’s no exact explanation for why the number of Jewish delis in Chicago is declining. Maybe the operating costs of maintaining high-quality foods has made the business unsustainable, or patrons may simply be changing their tastes. However, Jewish Delis still remain, continuing the long tradition of authentic Ashkenazi food.
The design of the Ashkenazi typeface was inspired by typography in Chicago’s Jewish delis. By looking at signage, advertisements, and menus through history, various design trends emerged. The materials highlighting characteristics of Hebrew letterforms embedded within English messages are the most interesting. This style is also known as Faux-Hebrew. In typography, faux letterforms fall under the category of mimicry typefaces—a group of Latin characters designed to look like non-Latin ones. The most common mimicry typefaces are Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, and Indic languages. The idea behind mimicry typefaces is to convey the look and feel of a foreign writing system inside a familiar alphabet. The appearance of two different writing systems simultaneously creates a dissonance, which makes the letterforms stand out among the standard typefaces. In the 19th century, mimicry typefaces were sometimes designed by white Americans in the to portray and tease other cultures. The Chop Suey typeface is an example of this, ironically Asian Americans later adopted it to advertise Asian food products to non-Asians. Surprisingly, American Jews are the ones designing Hebraized lettering, they do this as an inside joke to communicate with their community rather than to non-Jewish people.
However, Ashkenazi is designed to be used in Jewish and non-Jewish projects. This typeface has unique typographic features that are unusual and refreshing for a Latin typeface. It’s designed with reverse contrast—the letters’ crossbars are thicker than the letters’ stems, making the text appear excitingly noticeable with its bold horizontal lines. Moreover, the slanted serifs are calligraphic, designed to convey motion and energy, just like the bustling Jewish delis at lunch time. Ashkenazi is a fun faux-Hebrew typeface that could be great for varied projects because of its ability to draw anyone’s attention, even non-Jewish audiences, due to its unique shapes. Its connection to Chicago’s Jewish delis gives a friendly vibe that is part of the city’s rich history.
Daniel Fain is a graphic design graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is currently researching dissonance as a visual communication device, specifically in typefaces, maps, and image-making forms. He has over 10 years of experience in advertising, working for agencies such as Publicis, Critical Mass, and Simple Truth. Daniel received a Bachelor of Design degree in Visual Communications from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel.
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Letters Beyond Form is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities. This project is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Notes
Andrew Silverstein; Forward. 2022. In the rarified world of Jewish letters, a mind-boggling font of Jewish history. July 22. Accessed February 26, 2024. https://forward.com/culture/507668/faux-hebrew-font-jewish-antisemitic-soy-vey-origins-fake-yiddish-letters/.
Chicago History Museum Archive; Abakanowicz Research Center.
Chicago History Museum. n.d. Chicago History Museum Images. Accessed January 31, 2024. https://images.chicagohistory.org.
Dr. Gale, Neil, PHD; The Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal. 2022. Where Have All The Chicago Jewish Delicatessen's Gone? May 5. Accessed Febrauray 17, 2024. https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2022/05/where-have-all-chicago-jewish-delis-gone.html.
Gotham New York Bagel & Eats. 2021. ALL ABOUT WHITEFISH. May 23. Accessed February 17, 2024. https://www.gothambagels.com/blog/all-about-whitefish.
Meletis, Dimitrios. 2023. ""Is Your Font Racist?" Metapragmatic online discourse on the use of typographic mimicry and its appropriateness." Social Semiotics 33, no. 5
p. 1046-68. Merriam-Webster. n.d. Kosher. Accessed February 17, 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kosher.
Silverstein, Andrew. 2022. In the rarified world of Jewish letters, a mind-boggling font of Jewish history. July 22. Accessed Febraury 26, 2024. https://forward.com/culture/507668/faux-hebrew-font-jewish-antisemitic-soy-vey-origins-fake-yiddish-letters/.
Skirball Cultural Center. 2023-2024. Gallery Guide — "I'll Have What She's Having": THE JEWISH DELI. Chicago: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
The Bagel. n.d. OUR MENU. Accessed February 17, 2024. https://bagelrestaurant.com/chicago-the-bagel-restaurant-and-deli-food-menu.
The Hebrew University Genetic Resource. 2023. Ashkenazi Jews. March 27. Accessed February 17, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20131020004618/http://hugr.huji.ac.il/AshkenaziJews.aspx.
University of Illinois Chicago; Liberal Arts and Sciences; Department of History. n.d. Touring the Architecture of the Maxwell Street District. Accessed February 17, 2024. https://maxwellhalsted.uic.edu/home/maxwell-st-architecture/touring-the-architecture-of-the-maxwell-street-district-part-1/index.html.
WBEZ Chicago. 2016. Small Biz: Chicago Institution Manny’s Deli. May 5. Accessed February 17, 2024. https://www.wbez.org/stories/small-biz-chicago-institution-mannys-deli/1fc3dbe9-9cb4-47ef-bdac-7f79a3ff4830.
Yelp. Accessed February 12, 2024. https://www.yelp.com.
Ashkenazi Typeface © 2024 by Daniel Fain
Design direction: Sharon Oiga and Amira Hegazy