Islamic Vases Revisited / Edo Smithshuijzen

Vases are practically as old as humanity. Each world culture created its own traditional version of containers. Also the Islamic culture had their own types of vases in which the Arabic script played an important role. Over the centuries, the Arabic script has seen endless varieties and styles, also due to the fact that different languages made use of the script, like Arabic, Persian, Indian and Turkish.0In archeological terms an artefact is only called?complete?, when sufficient parts of an artefact have been found to reliably reconstruct the shapes of the missing parts, and thus been given the option to recreate the whole artefact. In this publication the author examines what happens when you make artefacts more than complete.0In the effort, he makes use of the extremely rich Islamic calligraphic tradition. Copying nameless samples found on the digital media. But he also experiments with typefaces designed by contemporary type designers. Traditionally, the vases were ceramic or glass vases. The author uses contemporary digital methods to create the images and to eventually produce his designs in an attempt to inspire and encourage designers to make use of contemporary methods of production to revive a rich tradition.

English