Yesterday’s Images, Today’s Graphic Design
This project was my BFA thesis which was transformed into a bilingual book (Farsi and English) and published by “Printing & Publishing Organization of Ministry of Culture” in Iran, four editions from 2008 to 20016. The project is collecting and classifying images of prehistoric painted potteries of Iran and analyzing the role of the images in Persian Identity in applied art and contemporary art & design. Iranian Design professors and students, professional designers, and artists have endorsed and appreciated the book because the book is looking at prehistoric images from a design perspective, uniquely. The book is about bringing ancient images to our modern life.
Persian “Terra Cotta” [pots and earthenware], is the oldest “Terra Cotta” in the world (Persia is the ancient name of Iran). The painted images on these pots are simple, abstract, symbolic and stylized, meaningful; they are preparation to create the alphabet. In fact, the ancient artists were able to communicate with the outer world by using the unique visual language of these images. After studying these ancient images and their focus on forms and shapes, we can find these ancient images are more modern than some modern images.
The book includes two parts. The first part is a collection of the painted images of Earthenware from the prehistoric times of Iran, including 539 images that are categorized by subject. I have collected the images from the historical sites of Iran, museums, and books around the world, and scanned the photos and images, then, reproduce them in a vector format. The second part finds out the visual values of the images; they are simple, abstract, symbolic and stylized, meaningful. The meaning of the images are briefly explained. It also finds out how Iranian designers has been inspired by these images, and how these historical images are bringing the Persian Identity to their artworks. Designers and artists are using these images and bringing these images from museums and history books into people’s daily life. Using these images in contemporary art will make a great change: These beautiful images which has been always decorating the world museums and history books so far, and were only admired by artists and archeologist, could now enter into the lives of modern man.
