By Tarek Atrissi

Promotional posters of the exhibitions across the streets of Amsterdam

The Opening of our Exhibition “Arabic Graphics: the work of Tarek Atrissi in Exhibition” took place on the 2nd of May 2008 - in the presence of the Lebanese ambassador of the Netherlands Zaydan El Sagir- and will be on display through the summer at the The Delevante Foundation gallery in Amsterdam. The initial scheduled end of the exhibition on June 22nd has been extended until the 31st of August. For us at Tarek Atrissi Design, this marked the end of a lot of work and preparations for the exhibition, accompanied with the launch of our new website, but was certainly a great recognition to have in The Netherlands; and a chance to review and organize a lot of our work developed over the last 10 years. The opening of the Exhibition was as well a memorable reunion of friends, family, colleagues, clients, and people who has supported me as a designer and supported us as a design studio, in an ongoing exciting entrepreneurial business experience that started back in 2000.

From the Opening of “Arabic Graphics: The work of Tarek Atrissi in Exhibition”.

Seeing a “3 Dimensional portfolio space” is definitely exciting on its own; yet the pre-preparation process phase was in itself even more exciting. We have spent a lot of time exploring design possibilities for the exhibition poster and promotional material- and eventually were delighted to see the poster across the streets of Amsterdam: Adding an Arabic fingerprint across the city; and contrasting in its bright colors and simple design treatment with the rest of the posters on display at the time.

The Delevante Gallery which hosted the Exhibition- shown above the Poster design mural and some of the Arabic Typography and Type Design showcased work.

Though usually I consider myself a good speaker, I have been taken by surprise to add few words to the introduction speech and - probably because of the very personal aspect of this event- failed to articulate well and thank many of the people who helped in the exhibition. Paul Klok, Azza Alameddine and Diana Hawatmeh for putting so much efforts the last two month before the Expo; Fred van Eijk for a wonderful introduction speech; The entire Delevante team for believing all the way in their cultural mission; The sponsors of the exhibition (Gemeente Amsterdam, ArteGanza, Eutopia, Stichting Doen); All the friends and colleagues that came a long way to be part of the show; As well as Annahar Newspaper, for reviewing our work so positively across the years.

From the Opening of “Arabic Graphics: The work of Tarek Atrissi in Exhibition”.

It was a chance to celebrate our designs, yet most importantly, an occasion to look at the bigger picture of the work we are doing and have been producing, and reflecting on the future of our design practice.

By Tarek Atrissi

Preview for the hand made multilingual “goodbye” posts of the project “Partir c’est mourir un peu”.

“Partir c’est mourir un peu” is the title of a wonderful “typographic” project that I accidentally saw on my way to the office in Hilversum. In a small neighborhood on the edge of the city, people have posted large goodbye posts outside their windows, in reaction to the fact that they will be leaving their apartments since the buildings will be destroyed and replaced with a new urban development plan. The multicultural aspect of the street resulted in multilingual signs, colorful, amateurish, yet with a beautiful authentic character.
Probably the best “typographic “Adios” I have seen in a while!

By Tarek Atrissi

I am on average speaking every two or three weeks in a design seminar, conference, or school, somewhere around the world. This has always been an exciting part of my work as a designer, because it allowed me to see and experience the design scene in so many different countries and learn from other speakers, design professionals and students. It is a great way for continuing education; for breaking any sort of routine at work; and for sharing my design practice in research and professional work to a wider audience, and be active on a more international design network. Yet, this has imposed a very tiring lifestyle, with never ending business travel; a challenge to keep up with our ongoing projects in my design firm; and a work definition that is very different by all means from any traditional definition of the work of a Graphic designer, and even Art or creative Director. I always knew that this will have to stop at some point, since the rhythm is too difficult to keep up with, and that I will be sooner rather than later retiring from the “speaking tour” and spending happily more of my time within a 50 km radius from my studio. However, my participating at the Design and Technology Salon at the San Francisco Art Institute last April made me believe that this can really become a much easier practice.

Preview from the Virtual Conference showing video of all speakers in different cities, connecting to the design and technology Salon at the San Francisco Art Institute via Adobe Connect Pro. Shown above as well Type Design work of Yanek Iontef.

The conference was mostly virtual, and all three speakers, located respectively in The Netherlands, Egypt and Israel, presented their papers through a live broadcast, and interacted with each other, with the moderator and with the audience in San Francisco not very differently than how they would if they were to be present in a same geographic location. I have participated in the past in “virtual speaking” attempts, but it had always been a technical nightmare, and often did not run very smoothly (mostly sound and interaction with audience), and that is why I had my doubts about the San Francisco Art Institute event. But this was a surprising exception. The Video link participation was an exciting success, and mainly due to a powerful Adobe tool which I wasn’t familiar with: Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional. Adobe Connect Enterprise is an integrated web communication solution for real-time meetings, eLearning, and online presentations that audiences can see and hear anytime, anywhere, though any standard web browser- and enables you to deliver rich and engaging content through live meetings and interaction with others. During the virtual presentation, for example, I was able to upload my presentation for sharing instantly; add any image or slide or file on the spot for sharing; be part of the Video and Audio broadcast with everyone, and more interesting be able to separately speak or chat with the moderator or other speakers, in parallel to the main conference track. Most importantly: it was easy. I connected to the online platform less than two hours before the start of my talk, and was at ease instantly in using its interface and understanding how it operates. I believe that this will be a big trend towards the future of design conferences- but of course a very interesting online method for use in design studios and firms, which are becoming virtual in many aspects: Work is often for clients at the other side of the planet; Creative teams, even small ones, are not longer necessarily in the same geographic location. I know that we- at Tarek Atrissi Design- find it a tool with great potential for our daily communication needs (with our clients and with each other) and we are experimenting further with it. It is worth checking out, in the following page introducing Adobe Connect Pro or in this quick “getting Started guide“.

During the Design and Technlogy Salon, we witness the sun rising first in Tel Aviv at the office of Yanek Iontef; then at the window behind Bahia Shehab’s desk in Cairo; and finally in my own living room in Hilversum, from where I conducted my talk. Between these three cities and San Francisco, we discussed how the need to be global has challenged notions of traditional design practice in the Middle East; How Global design is raising timely questions about what it means to work in the region and consume the visual and if global design is reinforcing stereotypical notions of mideast culture.

By Tarek Atrissi

“Arabic Graphics: The work of Tarek Atrissi in Exhibition” will be the title of the Graphic and Typographic exhibition opening in Amsterdam on May 2nd, and staying on display until the end of June. The exhibition is hosted by Stichting De Levante, the leading institute in Oriental art and culture in Holland. It will exhibit a selection of our Graphic Design work at Tarek Atrissi Design, often distinguished by a strong Arabic and cross cultural flavor.

Promotional poster for the Exhibition opening in Amsterdam on May 2nd

Needless to say, getting such a recognition here in the Netherlands is very exciting; For long our exposure was- oddly enough- mostly international, and less local. But the last two years in Holland have witnessed a great interest in cross cultural design work which became a reflection of the ever changing multi-cultural society of the Netherlands; and which is considered by many to be the new cosmopolitan face of Dutch Design. More on the exhibition, our preparation for it, and its outcomes to be posted soon on this blog. Meanwhile more on the exhibition can be seen on the expo’s website at www.arabicgraphics.com

By Tarek Atrissi

Preview of different Arabic & Arabesque Patterns from Oman.

The best thing about the Arab world, is that it is a world in itself, and there is always a new place and a new sub-culture to discover within this vast Arab speaking geographic area extending from Morocco to the Gulf. My travels took me to Oman, where I was fascinated by my experience in the city of Muscat. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Visual culture that I first noticed was the beautiful patterns that one can’t miss. In Architecture, in textile, in decoration, in traditional clothing, authentic and rich Arabic and Arabesque patterns are pretty much everywhere.

Photography from the Souk of the city of Muscat

But there is much more to Oman than beautiful patterns: The country has some unique characters that are not typically found in the surrounding Gulf. The landscape is breathtaking and the infrastructure is excellent- making it a rising tourist destination by all means.

And of course, the city of Muscat is rich its own typographic character, inviting me once again to document the typo-graphic street language of the city. A documentation which often comes helpful as a visual reference in many projects we are involved in at Tarek Atrissi Design.

Collected images from the Typographic street landscape of the city of Muscat.

By Tarek Atrissi

BBC Arabic, the new Arabic Speaking London based News TV station has officially started its broadcast this week, joining a competitive and congested market of Arabic Speaking international News channel worldwide. BBC defines its Arabic service as a fresh and objective approach to the region, in a dynamic and modern cross-multimedia platform consisting of TV, Radio, and Online Arabic speaking services.

Preview of the new custom Arabic font developed by Tarek Atrissi Design for the new BBC arabic speakingsatellitetelevision.

The launch of the Television channel marks the end of a long term project we have been involved in at Tarek Atrissi Design- consisting of the design and implementation of a custom Arabic Typeface- for on screen and off air usage. The Arabic Typeface design project, which started at the end of 2006, became an key aspect of the channel’s branding, particularly with the managerial decision not to develop a specific Arabic Logo for the channel- and sticking hence with the overall BBC TV Branding and look and feel. The Developed Arabic font became then one of the main key identifying element of the channel, and the constantly present main element of the on Air Branding.

The process of defining the mission, vision, and overall appearance and communication elements of BBC Arabic were something we had to be naturally involved in, in order to succeed with our Custom Type Design branding assignment and help define further the visual identity of the channel. Our research started with a look at the first BBC Arabic satellite attempt, launched back then in 1994 as the first satellite Arabic Channel in the world- which led us to find some of the old simple (yet charming) screen graphics (and typography) of the BBC Arabic of the mid 90s. The Channel back then lived only for two years, when editorial content debates led to the end of a tensed relation of the Saudi Arabia financing partners of the channel. Many argue that the collapse of BBC Arabic back then is one of the main reasons that resulted in the current success and dominance of Al Jazeera, that launched the same year of BBC arabic going off air, and was staffed by many of the BBC’s previous employees that somehow carried the same spirit and approach into Al Jazeera.

Screenshots from the initially launched BBC arabic of the mid 90s, with interesting previews of typographic and calligraphic elements used at the time.

Take two of BBC Arabic, coming nearly 12 years after its shutdown, came with a more secure financial future (as it is funded by the British government), yet with very high expectations within the fierce present competition, within a market with 500 Arabic language channels. This explain maybe why the BBC- as a client- has been so involved in every step in the design process, and had to think and re-think every step of the research and execution- more than any other other type design client that I dealt with before. The set goal of BBC to reach an audience of 25 million viewer across the Arab world did not make things easier for us. Questions on how to appeal to such a vast group- with vast typographic preferences- and how to convey in a font both a traditional and modern voice, reflecting both the tradition and values of BBC as well as the modern Arabic spirit it aims to project. All that while keeping a recognizable look for the font that will be identified by the viewer as the specific BBC screen headlines font.

The early phases of the project were very similar to the first steps of a visual identity development process. Starting by defining the target group and analyzing the audience’s aesthetic preferences and the typographic trends they tend to appreciate. The positioning of the font resulted from a detailed study of positioning of other existing used fonts today across Arabia, that clearly narrowed down for us some of the stylistic characteristic we will follow, and some of the main design characteristics that we will have to avoid.

Selected sketches and lettering explorations from the long process of design, production and testing of the BBC Arabic Typeface.

The end result of the BBC Arabic font is a kufi inspired bold font with a characteristic thin horizontal baseline that contrasts with the vertical and other horizontal strokes. The font was adapted to be used for both the main headlines and for the rather smaller continuously running news flash at the lower of the screen. So many different directions were explored, and so much corporate politics were bypassed, and very opposite & different opinions during the process between Arab speaking and non Arabic speaking management at BBC left us puzzled, but leading eventually to the final Arabic font on air as of last week- making us very excited at Tarek Atrissi Design that we were part of this remarkable point in the ever developing Arab Media.

By Tarek Atrissi

It is always exciting to be in Dubai. No matter how not far your latest visit was, you will always be surprised to see how many things have changed and how the city has developed further, with the positive and negative aspects that comes along with the change. The landscape now is dominated by Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building, which is high enough now to become the leading character in the city Landscape. Metro Dubai, the ambitious public transport project in progress to solve the ever increasing traffic problem of the city is also visibly showing across Dubai as it reaches advanced development levels. And of course, on a smaller scale (yet with huge billboards), many new brands have emerged- and many other existing brands have been re-branded and re-presented with a new look and feel.

My interview on the Dutch TV Documentary Tegenlicht mainly was over the “identity” of Dubai and discussing the image and reality of the city from an internal and external point of view.

Dubai, The Emirates, and the Gulf in general have been an important center of attention across the world. Which is one of the reason why the Dutch TV Channel VPRO decided to dedicate an episode of its award winning Documentary series, “Tegenlicht”, on the United Arab Emirates- with a particular focus on Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The weekly broadcasted informative program Tegenlicht is a series in which new ideas and trends in politics, economics, society, science and culture are explored. The main purpose of the program is to create an understanding of the way society orders itself both in the Netherlands and abroad, with a focus on analysis of the factors and influences that play a role in these developments. While most of the world’s media are focused on the Middle East as a region of conflict , a “silent revolution” is taking place in the Gulf states: Tegenlicht’s special episode, “The Rising Gulf” will focus in a 50 minutes documentary on this rapid modernization process which is taking place in this part of the Arab World, one that has never been seen before. I have accompanied the VPRO team to the UAE; on one hand to support them with my suggestions on interesting aspects and people to investigate in Dubai; and on the other hand to be interviewed in the documentary on the issue of the “Identity of Dubai”- and my critical understanding of the image and model the Emirates its projecting to the outside world. All from the dual perspective of a person who has lived in the Gulf; and who visits and observe the Gulf from the outside on a professional, cultural, and personal level. The Program will be broadcasted in Holland in the last week of January / first week of February. It will showcase as well Marwa Hashim, one of my previous students from the American University of Dubai, who is a great example of the new generation of Local Emiraties expressing their talent and ambitions within the rapid changes and development of the UAE.

Arabic Wordmark we developed for Wafi Mall in Dubai- seen above on various external graphics. The long process of the word creation was based eventually on an old architectural calligraphic engraving done for Wafi.

Beside the Tegenlicht Documentary; it is always exciting on a personal level to be in Dubai as I often get to see some of the projects we have worked on at Tarek Atrissi Design, in context, for the first time. This trip was a chance to see several of our typographic “fingerprints” around the city. The Arabic Signature / lettering of the new brand of Etisalat, the UAE’s national telecommunication company, is as part of the brand literally in every corner of the city. The Arabic wordmark for WAFI shopping mall- which we have developed at part of the larger re-branding project of WAFI mall, is finally implemented and was a pleasure to be seen on the pyramid shaped building and the banners and environmental graphics of the mall. More recent is typographic voice of MTV Arabia, which we developed in the form of an Arabic and Latin Typeface for the channel, which you could see on mega-large billboards across Dubai.

Etisalat became one of Dubai’s most visible brands today. The Arabic lettering we developed has been an exciting element to constantly be seen across the city.

Billboard promoting the new MTv Arabia with its slogan “you are MTV”- in the MTV Arabia font.

By Tarek Atrissi

The new look and feel of the Amnesty International Website brought with it a change to their Arabic Logo Signature. Pleasantly surprising, Amnesty chose for our font “Al-Ghad” which we have designed at Tarek Atrissi Design- to be the font used in their Arabic logo and their primary communication. In comparison to then previous generic Arabic type Amnesty used prior to this; Al-Ghad seems as a better choice to fit Trade Gothic used in Latin.

New Arabic Logo of Amnesty International Using Atrissi-Al-Ghad font

The Al-Ghad Type Family started as a font designed for the masthead and section titles for Al-ghad newspaper in Jordan- and was developed further afterwards in its design detail to be used for the jordanian Channel ATV in two weights (with the name ATV). Two other weights are being developed in our office now, and the entire font family will entirely released in 2008 under the name “Atrissi-Al-Ghad”. Currently, only the Regular and Bold versions are available for purchase. Since its first versions, Al-Ghad has been a popular font and we have been seeing it used over the years in several different medium such as signage, print design, and on the TV screens of course. Below are some examples of Al-Ghad in use in different applications.

Al-Ghad font used on an Arabic Poster on censorship of cultural expression in the Middle East - Poster designed by Lara Balaa

The Al-Ghad font as seen on TV Screen, when ATV started broadcasting in Jordan last year.

By Tarek Atrissi

The opening of “Palestine, the Art of survival”, organized by the
“DeLavente foundation”, was launched last week in its first opening
exhibition in Amsterdam. The Event will continue until end of
February 2008, and will host palestinian Artists, films, exhibitions
and music events in different locations across the city. We have
designed at Tarek Atrissi Design the poster for the event, as well as
related needed communication material. The posters were to be seen
across the streets of the city of Amsterdam during the last weeks; A
particularly exciting sight for us as it is always refreshing to see
a design in context, especially when it comes to a poster in display
as part of the rich street poster culture of Amsterdam.

Above: Photo of the “Palestine Art of Survival” poster in Amsterdam,
and preview of all 3 color version of the poster.

By Tarek Atrissi

MTV Arabia have launched two weeks ago, creating a buzz in the Arab world, particularly Dubai, as the new youth oriented and long awaited channel that will compete with existing Music Channels in the Middle East. For more than 8 month, we have been working at Tarek Atrissi Design on supporting with the conceptualizing, design and production of some of their Motion Graphics (as well as a custom Arabic Typefaces / font, see previous Post)- and I will summarize in this post the design process of our work, and some of our comments on the visual identity created for it.

Above: Previews from our own (rejected) proposal routes for MTV Arabia’s identity (initially briefed as “Arabiya” in terms of spelling).

Unfortunately, we were not behind the logo and visual identity / branding created for the Channel. We are not a big fan of it as a matter of fact. We were invited earlier in 2007 to put a proposal for the logo and visual identity of the channel, and we proposed an exciting, youthful and rich Arabic solution for a corporate Identity system- but we never won that Pitch; the project was awarded to a Dubai based agency. The logo created for MTV Arabia consisted of the classic MTV logo, filled with Arabic isolated letters that form the word “arabia”. While the concept of the logo has potential, I found its execution to be very poor. The Arabic letters in the logo were from the widely used Bassima Font- a calligraphic digital font that fails in my opinion to create a unique look, and that in itself is a poor handwritten calligraphy imitation. That said, our most criticism for the identity created was that it did not include, beyond the logo and the brand strapline, a clear and elaborate identity manual that explains the usage of the multi-version very colorful logo, and the definition of a unique visual language and graphic elements. And as users of this identity, at a later stage, we found it very difficult as designers to understand the visual brand, or how to expand it while working on several projects for the channel.

Screen Graphics from a second route from our proposal for MTV Arabia’s identity- never implemented.

Back to our work involvement; Loosing the Pitch did not stop MTV Arabia from commissioning us at Tarek Atrissi Design to create the identity of five Shows of MTV- from logo, look and feel and motion graphics design and production- as well as design a series of Bumpers for the channel.

Previews from the identity and motion graphics of the MTV Arabia show Alternative Nation.

The project was challenging on many levels. On one hand, the five shows were very different in style and content; On the other hand, we were wondering what the bigger picture and mission of MTV is, and if they will just be importing international shows and content and literally “translate” it, or if it will be more rooted in the Arabic context and emerging out of a unique niche MTV Arabia will create for itself. Lack of elaborate briefs and a vague vision of the entire channel did make things more difficult- and eventually we approached the branding of every show as a separate project, trying to base our process on the information given to us about each specific show, and our understanding of both the Arabic culture and the MTV Europe Culture (three of the shows existed on the MTV Europe Channel). We approached most of the shows not specifically with a visible Arabic style, because we certainly did not want to have an imposed obvious “Arabic” visual language, and kept our consideration and understanding of the geography and culture behind MTV Arabia on a deeper less visible layer, which we think is the right way to reach the young Arab target group audience of the new Dubai based channel.

Previews and screen shots from identity and motion graphics for the show “Pure Arabia”

Each show’s look and feel represented the actual music genre or content nature present in the program: “Alternative Nation” visualized its grunge and rock nature; “World Chart Express” visualized the adventurous and travel aspect of the international music showcased in the program; and “Introducing Blocks” used a kitsch style to visualize the “gossipy” aspect of the program. The only show which truly looked Arabic in its opening sequence and identity is “Pure Arabia”, simply because the content of the show was focused on Arabic music, and hence the typographic approach (using Fedra Arabic of the typographic matchmaking project) seemed the most appropriate.

As for the bumpers series, and after many trials and exploration of several approaches, the final outcome was a series of flat and abstract short animations, starting with patterns inspired from an arabesque concept- yet very modern- that builds up the MTV logo.

preview from the Bumpers series developed for MTV Arabia.

Our full work for the MTV on air Elements and show identity projects can be seen in more details on the following link- where we documented the project as a portfolio piece- and where samples of the set design designed for some of the shows are displayed as well.

On the bigger picture, the success of MTV Arabia as a channel is to be judged in the future, seeing if it will be able to be as influential in Arabia both in music and culture as much as it has been in the West.