Ismar David (27 August 191026 February 1996) was a

calligrapher Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as " ...

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for publishe ...

, and

type design Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...

er. Ismar David was born on 27 August 1910, in Breslau (

Wrocław Wrocław (; , . german: Breslau, , also known by other names) is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, roughly ...

), then part of the German Empire, to Rosa and Wolff David. He was apprenticed to a house painter in Breslau from 1925 to 1928, when he went to Berlin. There, he went to art school at Städtische Kunstgewerbe- und Handwerkerschule in

Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Prussia, it is best known for Charlottenburg Palace, the la ...

. He left school in 1932 and moved to

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, then under the

Mandate for Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordan, both of which had been conceded by the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I in 1918. The mandat ...

, where he worked with the Jewish National Fund to design golden books—works in which the fund's donors were profiled. While in Jerusalem, David designed a

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands ...

for the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

called David Hebrew.

David settled permanently in New York City in 1953. David's art often accompanied religious texts. He died on 26 February 1996 in New York City.

Ismar David Archive

The

Cary Graphic Arts Collection The Cary Graphic Arts Collection is a library and archive of books, type specimens, manuscripts, documents, and artifacts related to the history of graphical communication. Located in Wallace Library at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT ...

, a rare book library on the history of graphic communication, holds the Ismar David Papers. The collection contains correspondence, personal papers, photographs, writings, artwork, and publications that document David's life and career.

Publications

* ''The Hebrew Letter: Calligraphic Variations'' (1990)

External links

Ismar David Archive

Ismar David Papers
at the Cary Graphic Arts Collection

Citations

Works cited

* * 1910 births 1996 deaths American graphic designers German emigrants Immigrants to Mandatory Palestine Immigrants to the United States People from Wrocław {{Graphic-designer-stub