Stari Most
identity, 2019Stari Most (literally “Old Bridge”) was a 16th century
Ottoman bridge that crossed the river Neretva, connecting
the two halves of the city of Mostar in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The Old Bridge stood for 427 years, until
it was destroyed in 1993 by Croat military forces during
the Croat–Bosniak War. After the war a project was set in
motion to reconstruct it, with the rebuilt bridge opening
in 2004. The bridge is one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s
most recognizable landmarks, and is considered an
exemplary piece of Balkan Islamic architecture.
For many, including my mother, Stari Most’s destruction symbolized a shocking tipping point in the Yugoslav wars where suddenly nothing was sacred: not life, liberty, art or even shared cultural history. I made this identity for the UNESCO World Heritage site to commemorate Stari Most’s painful past and to visually symbolize unity and hope for Mostar’s rehabilitation. Set in Balkan Sans—a bi-script Cyrillic and Latin typeface designed in 2012 by Nikola Djurek and Marija Juza—the identity hinges on the Balkan sprachbund, a linguistic phenomenon of shared features between the Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Serbian languages.
For many, including my mother, Stari Most’s destruction symbolized a shocking tipping point in the Yugoslav wars where suddenly nothing was sacred: not life, liberty, art or even shared cultural history. I made this identity for the UNESCO World Heritage site to commemorate Stari Most’s painful past and to visually symbolize unity and hope for Mostar’s rehabilitation. Set in Balkan Sans—a bi-script Cyrillic and Latin typeface designed in 2012 by Nikola Djurek and Marija Juza—the identity hinges on the Balkan sprachbund, a linguistic phenomenon of shared features between the Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Serbian languages.
© Aleks Dawson, 2023. All rights reseverd.