Tyler Kliem is what he is not
2023
Zine, found paper
This bilingual personal zine—in both English and Yiddish—is a written and visual collage of my life as an aesthete, writer, designer, and culturemaker. Printed on found paper from a 19th-century book, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, the content of the zine weaves together my complicated Jewish ancestry with the enduring quality of materiality and the intertext. My zine spans original media: a Yiddish translation of a 20th-century text, a journal entry, photos, and poetic verse. I call for my desire to be rooted in my culture, while also acknowledging my existence as far removed from generations preceding my own.
Air to go as it passes
2023
35mm black-and-white film prints, photographic paper
This film photo collection comments on “ethereality” as a gesture in the medium of portraiture. In manipulating the lighting of the scene and confining the gaze of my subjects beyond the camera, I distort the ethereal into something self-provoking and uneasy. I suggest that the soft visual pleasure associated with ethereality becomes fluid, yet less vivid or less refined. That is to suggest the air is going as it passes; the ethereal has entered the photo, just for it to pass on through.
Cities: Selected Poems
2023
The Jewish Museum
Creative Intern
Zine of translations, newsprint
This collection of original poetry translations was first written by Malka Locker in Yiddish in her 1942 volume Shtet. The eclectic work by Locker, which has never before been translated into English, calls into question what defines the “Jewish art,” how the Yiddish language associated with an underclass forms the basis for cosmopolitanism, and the evolving nature of the landscape in the tradition of the Jewish wanderer. My design of five selected poems for The Jewish Museum incorporates digital illustrations and an originally designed Yiddish typeface, reconstructed from 19th-century newspaper issues of the Forverts.
Issue no. 1 “IN / OUT”
2023
The Woodlands Magazine
Creative Director
Layout, graphics, visual identity, and promotional content
The Woodlands Magazine is a student-run publication at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in creative non-fiction and narrative storytelling centered in the macabre fantasy—typically not reported on by mainstream outlets in Philadelphia and beyond. The first issue of the magazine began with a conception of how the greater world might see the internal world and vice versa. The design language incorporates vibrant colors, sophisticated typography, and vintage iconography and patterns to do what is instructed of us: “Venture into The Woodlands.”
The Daily Pennsylvanian
2020–2023
Design Editor
Layout, graphics, visual identity, and promotional content
The Daily Pennsylvanian is the 140-year-old independent student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania. During my time on staff, I redesigned the publication's visual identity for the sake of modern charm, created social media templates and vector graphics for articles, and designed print spreads—including a sports spread on national Lia Thomas coverage that won Pinnacle Award Honorable Mention for “Best Newspaper Sports Page/Spread Design” at the 2022 National College Media Convention. The design language is simple yet timeless, showcasing both the vibrancy of a media organization and the fruits of student journalism.