Lindsay Happ 02/20/14 Production Methods Professor Meranda

Noma Bar

!Israeli designer Noma Bar was born into a family of artists in Jerusalem, Israel, in

1973. He has made a name for himself in the design world by focusing on graphic illustration, using negative space and graphic wit in a way that is reminiscent of Shigeo

Fukuda’s style. He studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Art and Design, and after discovering his calling, moved to London, England in 2001 and has lived there ever since.

!Though he was born into a family of artists and studied art in college, Noma Bar did not actually find his niche until the Gulf War in Israel. While waiting in a shelter he saw a newspaper with a radioactive symbol on it, with what looked like the facial hair of

Saddam Hussein behind it. He played around with this idea and discovered his skill of depicting people with only small amounts of information. He has since built a career around this idea.

!Much like Shigeo Fukuda, Noma Bar has focused much of his career on conveying concepts with minimal amounts of information. Both designers used flat graphics, bold colors, and a huge emphasis on negative space to trick their viewers’ eyes and make them think. Also like Fukuda, Bar used this skill to promote anti-war campaigns, including a gallery series entitled ‘Cut the Conflict’.

!Bar has published over 550 illustrations, illustrated over sixty magazine covers, and published two books of his work. The first of these, published in 2008, is entitled

“Guess Who-the Many Faces of Noma Bar” and features one of the bodies of work that he is most known for: his illustrations of famous people and characters. His other book,

“Negative Space” was published in 2009 and features a series of illustrations that focus on the negative space in the image and the illusion that it can create. Though he is not as well known as Fukuda, Noma Bar is a very influential designer who is growing in skill and fame today.