20 August 2018 - Poster exhibition "Njegoš.otf" by the author Adela Zejnilović was opened at the “Balšića pazar” in Cetinje on Saturday, 18 August 2018, organized by NGA FLUX. The exhibition is a series of typographic posters inspired by Njegoš's manuscript.
This exhibition is a continuation of the project of reconstruction of the manuscript, which Adela Zejnilović began with her master's thesis in 2012, entitled "Montenegro in a letter - from personal to official" within which the fonts "Oktoih", "Serdari" and "Njegos" were designed to represent the reconstruction of the Cyrillic and Latin manuscript by Petar II Petrović Njegoš. The first series of authorial posters inspired by Njegoš's manuscript and designed using the author's "Njegos" font was presented at the exhibition "Digital Reconstruction of the Manuscript of Petar II Petrović Njegoš" in the Gallery Centre in Podgorica in 2013, which officially marked the year of the anniversary "200 years since the birth of Njegoš".
Creating fonts that have a starting point in the manuscript of cultural and historical figures is a kind of homage to that person. At a time when new fonts are created on a daily basis, the fonts created by important personality manuscripts bring us a special reading experience because now we can shape our thoughts in a different way and bring in freshness into the design process. By abstracting the meaning of written text, a graphic form in the form of drawings consisting of repeated strokes remains, elongated or short, rounded or spherical, upright or bent, and together, by their repetition, those strokes create a certain manuscript character that represents a unique portrait of the writer and reflects his current state.
The reconstruction of Njegoš's manuscript and its digital interpretation opens up another field for exploring Njegoš’s complex personality. By using the "Njegos" font, we can, most likely, print / read out his quotations again, or we can create new linguistic and visual forms inspired by his manuscript. One of the goals of the non-governmental association FLUX is preservation of the tradition and valorisation of the cultural heritage of Montenegro with emphasis on contemporary visual promotion. These authorial posters by Adela Zejnilović speak a modern design language, they do not return us to the past, and they do not replicate historical facts, but create new abstracted visual forms based on Njegoš's manuscript and thoughts. In those visual forms the typography ie. the font is not primarily designed with legibility purpose (which is mainly the primary function in graphic design), but the poster served only as a presentation form and is subordinate to typography. The punctuation mark is not only treated here as a concrete grapheme, but as a graphysm / painting / drawing - an author's composition. On some of the compositions, Njegoš's graphemes were enlarged to the point of complete abstraction and creation of new graphysms, while on the other posters a new visual poetry was created by repetition and overlapping. Both these design approaches give a certain rhythm and provide the exhibition with dynamics, which is very important, taking into account that the exhibition setting is conceived and placed in a public space, and that it is created and exhibited in order to "communicate" with the citizens of Cetinje, visitors and tourists.
Adela Zejnilović was born in 1977 in Priština, and currently lives in Podgorica. She completed her undergraduate and master studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje. Currently, she is a PhD student at the Faculty of Applied Arts and Design, University of Art in Belgrade, on the subject of Letter. She is engaged at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje as a teaching assistant at the Graphic Design Program. She participated in several conferences and workshops in the country and abroad. She received several awards for design, and has exhibited in numerous independent and group exhibitions.
