Poetic Ideography in the Graphic Artworks of Farzad Adibi

Poetic ideography in graphics was es tablished about a century ago under the influence of modern art common in the Futurism period by poets like Marinetti. The intellectual foundations of this poetical view were based on the poet’s liberation from the shackles and res traints of grammar. The visual poetical view was firs t popularized by poets. The product of this poetical view was typography. The poetical view essentially sought to convey the theme of the poem, which was conducted by types. Until the early 1900s, the alphabet letters were utilized only in the usual horizontal/vertical forms. Then, typography was employed in a different form. As Marinetti put it, someone who watched an explosion should have their words thrown at the audience while screaming. In the second half of the 1900s, this expression s tyle continued in some other way in the world of graphic design. This poetical view has been observed in the artworks of some contemporary Iranian designers, including Farzad Adibi. Farzad Adibi has continued to have such a poetical view in a continuous, sys tematic, and different way. His work identity is tied to this design s tyle. He began professional graphic design in the early 1990s. Since then, he has designed numerous artworks in various graphics branches, including “cultural” graphics. A place has been attached to the “writing” in Farzad Adibi, which goes beyond the conventional informational element. Adibi’s recent artworks are an amalgamation of visual poetical view and designer’s nom de plume. Among the characteris tics of his works of art are the designer’s specific identity and its national identity, the visual expression and the special technique used in mos t of his artworks, and a s table personal s tyle. Mos t recent Adibi artworks are manifes tations of poetic and intrinsic ebullition, proportionate to the theme. In light of the foregoing, the present s tudy seeks to answer the ques tion, “What is poetic graphics, and how and why did such poetic ideography take shape in the graphic works of this designer?”. This s tudy aims to describe Persian visual poetic ideography in Iranian graphics and express the deep links between Iranian graphics and fine literature. This s tudy uses a qualitative approach, described by the visual content analysis of Farzad Adibi’s graphic artworks.According to the findings, poetic ideography means works of art whose original idea was a poem or a literary expression. The two characteris tics of a poetical view in graphics are the ironic expression and the fluidity of/liberation from form, which somehow manifes ted in the s tructure and theme of Adibi’s works of art. In response to the ques tion as to why such a poetical view was formed in Adibi’s artworks, several reasons can be mentioned. These include his mas tery of the target language, i.e., poetry and the source language, i.e., graphics, a new visual expression in Iranian graphics (called defamiliarization by Adibi), his special interes t in poetry, the type of orders along with professional works in literary magazines, familiarity with poets and writers, the accumulation of poetic visual experiences, the place attached to poetry and poetical view in the sphere of Iranian thought, and in some cases, his social concerns, in order of priority.