Designing for Jews Worldwide

And now for my first non-music related post. I'm so excited! Can't you tell?

Okay, so a duck walks into a drug store and says "Gimme some ChapStick! And put in on my bill!"

Sorry about that.

Right, designing for Jews worldwide... I am one of the lucky few who has the opportunity to create designs on my computer at work for chinuch purposes. There's a lot more to it then you think. You might think that I can just create a cartoon of a boy and slap a kippah on him and BAM! He's Kosher. Not so fast my friend, we are dealing with some serious issues here. Your design is completely dependent on what sect of Judaism it's for.

Here's the list:

(C)Hassidim - Long Peyos for kids. Long Coats and Fur Hats for men. Also, you need to have Yiddish.

Sefardi (Israeli's) - Sefard verses for any "Brachot". That's right you need to use the tuf instead of the suf as well.

Ashkenaz - Ashkenaz verses for any "Brachos".

Modern Orthodox - Standard designs with colors

Charedi - Black and white, no mixing boys and girls

The list actually goes on further, but I don't want to bore you with the details. Designing for Jews of all affiliations requires patience and most importantly, it requires many many versions.

For those of you think that there should be no change in details, no matter who you give the design to, your insane!

Welcome to the world.

I'm not just talking about the Jewish world.

I'm talking about this crazy political society we live in.

Mainstream designers will design specifically for ethnicities or religions all the time. You will find in posters with Spanish text, that the majority of the people in it are, can you guess? Hispanic. Everyone has to gear to their target audience, I'm just lucky enough to do it for my own people :).

Believe it or not, I'm not complaining, I actually do enjoy what I do a lot. Here's a sample of my work. And no, I did not create many versions of this. (Click to Enlarge).