On the Hummus Route

Dan Alexander, serving as Chief Editor, book designer, and art director, created and led the book’s unprecedented international collaboration of more than thirty contributors from diverse backgrounds. Key figures in the world of culture, cuisine, philosophy, science, and art joined him on this journey across nine Middle Eastern hummus hubs, from Cairo, all the way up to Damascus via Gaza, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Acre, and Beirut – all put together in the folds of one volume. He developed the book’s concept and envisioned that the chickpea, such a simple ingredient that is a staple in every home, can be at the core of a high-end publication resonating the social message: It’s all about humanity.

We used design as a language for communicating key messages about the community in which we live. He created a forward-thinking design language to bring the authentic essence of each city as a chapter. He developed a set of carefully planned graphic grids to streamline a coherent flow between the book’s multiple content types (recipes, essays, anecdotes, and imagery), while constructing a typography that harmonizes between three different languages featured as a gateway to the entire book and each chapter.