Hairlooms / J. Jay Garfinkel

Jacob Jay Garfinkel is a well known photography artist who lives and works in Jerusalem and in the USA.
The organization “One Family,” which is dedicated to uniting the victims of terrorism in Israel into one family, nationally and self-supporting, approached Graphinkle with a request to photograph personal belongings of victims and together create a book that would serve as a travel memoir, which takes the reaedr to journey of encounters with families who have lost loved ones.

The book present one personal object of each victim with accompanying text written by Garfinkel following encounters with each family. Sometimes, conditions weren’t optimal for good photography, and occasionally, the family provided low-quality photos. Nevertheless, I had to maximize their potential.

As this is a memorial book commemorating victims, I divided the book into chapters according to the number of victims. Each chapter included the name of the victim, a photo of their belonging, and relevant text.
I designed a graphic element of a symbolic flower that runs throughout the book.
The flower represents life, the uniqueness of each person, but also mourning and death.
At the forzats beginning and end of the book, I created a flower pattern on a dark background to “embrace” the inner pages and enhance the intimate feeling of the content.

This book is made in two versions – Hebrew and English, and is designed in a parallel and identical way with the adjustment of the layout and text.

Size: 24x17x2 cm ׀ Number of pages: 154 ׀ Hard cover ׀ Matt lamination ׀ Embossed spot UV