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In 1922, the Yiddish avant-garde literary journal Albatros (אַלבאַטראָס) was founded in Poland to platform new Jewish works of literature, criticism, and art. Based next in Berlin in 1923, its third issue cover featured abstract lettering—designed by Henryk Berlewi (1894–1967)—which still remains the most iconic Yiddish typographic exploration to this day. This project follows the reconstruction of Berlewi’s modernist lettering into a digital Hebrew font, featuring Yiddish-specific diacritics and a new number system. This work follows recent years of contemporary Yiddish type from source material, including Zofia Janina Borysiewicz’s 2019 reconstruction of Chaim (1929), a Polish Yiddish block type; and Noam Benatar’s book-length exploration of various iconic Yiddish lettering designs in Yiddish Displayed (2022). The exhibition poster set and progress book showcase the contemporary Albatros font specimen in all its glory as a spunky display type, now with a life reanimated 100 years later.

About the Artist

Tyler Kliem is a creative based in Philadelphia and New Jersey, whose work concerns: Jewish and Yiddish visual culture; Hebrew and Yiddish typographic experimentations; European modernist Yiddish literature; and bilingual publication design.