Assigment
The assignment was to design and produce the first monograph of the influential Croatian art director Dušan Bekar. The most difficult part of the task was to select works from Bekar's rich oeuvre that would provide a comprehensive overview of his work.

Approach
Bekar's extensive work, barely scratched by this publication, is presented through 250 selected works on 160 pages. The authors of the texts are Ksenija Foretić, Marko Golub, Alira Hrabar Bekar and Irma Puškarević, who approach the phenomenon of Dušan Bekar from different angles — far better known for his legendary design solutions than by his name.

Result
The bilingual monograph BEKAR: Prélude follows the creative odyssey of the influential art director Dušan Bekar, a member of the developmental line of Croatian graphic design in the second half of the twentieth century. Raised on the foundations of international modernism, Bekar began his journey in 1949 at the Ozeha agency as an eighteen-year-old, and over the next five decades he developed a unique vocabulary made up of illustrations, typography, calligraphy, photography and three-dimensional objects.

Bekar has continuously developed complete projects such as visual identities, graphic product design, advertising campaigns for various clients from this region (Bagat, Borovo, Fotokemika, Ghetaldus, Kreditna banka Zagreb, Labud, Marles, MTČ, Neva, RIS, TEŽ, Uljanik, Universiade ‘87, Upin, Velebit, Željezara Sisak…) as an independent author and in collaboration with large marketing agencies.

His conceptual visual solutions are firmly rooted in the collective memory, and some of them were created for clients such as Galeb, HEP, INA, Petrokemija, Podravka, Saponia or well-known brands such as Borosana and Startas and are still vividly present in our everyday lives today. Seen from a design point of view, the concept and layout of this monograph clearly, legibly and directly communicates both - images and text, with the least possible noise in the transmission of information.

The outer cover of the book is printed in silver and black, to emphasize the impression of analog photography (silver halide) that was an integral part of Dušan Bekar's everyday work, but also to emphasize the analog self-portrait that adorns the cover.

This bilingual monograph was published in 2024 by the Croatian Designers Association (HDD), with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City Office for Culture and the Civil Society of the City of Zagreb, and the company Igepa Plana.

IMPRESSUM

Designers
Alira Hrabar Bekar and Dušan Bekar

Writers
Ksenija Foretić, Marko Golub, Alira Hrabar Bekar, Irma Puškarević

Editor-In-Chief
Alira Hrabar Bekar

Photo Editor
Dušan Bekar

PrePress
BEKAR HAUS d.o.o.

Advisor
Dušan Bekar