Posted by Tarek Atrissi

I was glad to be part - as a contributing Author - of the book “New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century”, published by Thames & Hudson and Edited by Hossein Amirsadeghi and Salwa Mikadi. With over 500 stunning colour illustrations “New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century” offers the most comprehensive, scholarly and in-depth survey of what is happening at the cutting-edge of art in the Arab world.
Among the five essays in the book that offers a rich context and analysis of contemporary Arab art, my essay -“The Transformed Vernacular New language”- focused on the growing role of graphic design and visual communication as a form of personal expression; and expression reflecting a local visual language developed by a young generation of artists. The essays looks at the development of the discipline of graphic design in the Arab world, and its influences and growth as a contemporary form of visual art- a design language searching for its unique local visual flavor and constantly and curiously looking for visual elements and icons from the past century to be recycled across all fields of visual communication. An analytical look at the continuous search for an independent artistic expression that relates uniquely to the Arab environment, and that lead to rapid developments in the fields of Arabic typography, street graphics, urban art and visual identities, among other art forms. The essays sheds light on the adaptation of popular imagery from public spaces and the transformation of vernacular art into high art.

As part of the 90 illustrated profiles feature of key artists, organizations and galleries, my selection of artists to be included in the book was primarily based on artists with coming from a strong graphic background, using their graphic skills, sense of composition and design sensibility as a main essence behind their creative artistic expression.

Previews of the book are shown above. A recommended read for art lovers as well as anyone interested in the broader Arab cultures.

Posted by Tarek Atrissi

For the second year, I will be a guest critic at the School of Visual Art’s workshop in Design History, Theory and practice in Venice and Rome. An exciting two weeks intensive workshop with some of SVA’s top faculty and some guest Italian faculty members. A great opportunity to experience a design course from SVA in a European context. More info on the workshop can be seen on the following link http://design.sva.edu/masters_workshop_italy/

Posted by Tarek Atrissi

The second half of the year started at the Utrecht School of the Arts, where I teach at the Gaming Design and Development department. In this part of the year, I supervise Masters students with their final year projects, which is usually the outcome of around 7 month of research and work, and which is presented in the form of theory (Supportive Narrative / Thesis) and practice (Final project). While most of the projects are at the beginning phase, a lot of promising ideas and topics are being presented. Hopefully the results will be as exciting as the last academic year.

One of the excellent projects developed and finalized the last year has been a great success to date, gaining significant press coverage and winning the Dutch Game Award for the category “best student game”. “Hollandia”, an exciting 2d fully hand drawn action-adventure game, allows you to discover a beautiful and enchanting world, completely inspired by Dutch folklore, history and art. The story, set in a fairytale Holland, is about Tulpje, an adventurous young girl from the province Friesland. Skilled with a spinning top as a weapon, Tulpje travel through the Netherlands looking for a cure for her sick mother. On her way, she faces all kind of adventures and meet several fairytale characters, from Reynaert the trickster fox to the mysterious black Piets. It was an exciting experience to follow the progress of the project from start to end, and see it turn out as as a solid example of what we try to bring out of our students.

Marthe Jonkers and Ward Lindhout were respectively the Character design and Environment designer of the game. They were the main force behind the visual design of the game (part of the 5 person’s team that designed, developed and programmed the game). The strength of their visual design was that it was supported  by an extensive research that strongly backed up every decision made on the visual level. Marthe focused in her thesis on the possibilities of color usage in game art, and using its full potential to improve the visual quality and game experience. Studying the methods of color usage in art and psychology, she brought thoughtfully color applications to Hollandia in readability, atmosphere, symbolism and relative atmosphere. Ward on the other hand focused on composition in level design. Researching techniques of the old master Dutch painters, he worked on each composition in Hollandia to be carefully arranged in all its components in order to help the readability in the game. Each frame in the game, despite being a dynamic moving screen, is a balanced harmonious composition, with much depth and a deep understanding to compositional laws and related functionality

Hollandia uses key compositional points and lines to determine where the main character and some enemies are being placed. Tulpje is for instance always on the intersection of two 1/3rd lines

A game with a unique approach to showing Dutch culture, unlike the typical science fiction and fantasy often used as a main source of inspiration for games. Most important, Hollandia sets an example how cultural heritage can usefully and uniquely be brought into any gaming project. Watch below the trailer of the game to get a better impression of the project! (and don’t be discouraged by the first 20 seconds that include some boring pre-trailer school logo animation- what follows is worth watching).

By Tarek Atrissi

Water bottle packaging for the El Hema Oasis Desert water.

El Hema, the Arabic fictive (yet real) version of the famous Dutch HEMA department store, is back again this year, with an exhibition (or rather a store) in Rotterdam. El Hema, originally an idea of Mediamatic, was organized this year through cosmopolis, in collaboration with the brand hotel, and we were glad at Tarek Atrissi Design to be commissioned for the design of the main graphic and information design work involved in the project.

Above: Preview of the visual identity of El Hema, basis of the design work developed. The identity witnessed some minor adjustments, based on new briefings and some new changes in the HEMA identity; It built further on the identity developed by the Mediamatic Design team of Amsterdam 2007. The Square El Hema Version logo was back then design by Wael Morkos.

In 2007, the first El Hema project in Amsterdam organized by Mediamatic took an incredible press attention and was a big success: It was simply very unconventional to see a brand that is so Dutch, HEMA, taking a small twist and becoming in an Arabic form. A simple idea that reflects much more on the highly debated cross cultural integration and communication in the Netherlands. In 2007, we designed at Tarek Atrissi Design the Arabic logo of El Hema, working the Arabic lettering version to match the simple straight forward typographic Latin logo.

Above: Images of several items of the new El Hema collection, mostly typographic design solutions for intercultural concepts and ideas.

This year, with the concept slightly changed and a new wider line of products, our work mostly focused on the design of new products (Fashion and kitchen items), as well as a lot of packaging design for food and non food products, and retail and store interior design. We had a new briefing that slightly differed from the first concept we knew: As a successful idea, El Hema was carried as a concept to reinforce the richness of the intercultural living in Holland; but mostly was developed to be a successful business model, generating profit through sales of its unique products in order to support the grow of the collection, and the move the of the El Hema exhibition to other major cities in the Netherlands. The strongly cultural initial essence of the concept, had to be then combined with a business viability that will insure its continuous sustainability.

Artwork preview of some of the food products packaging. Shown above the Ksar Bahia and Musar wine Label design, as well as the Chocolate packaging.

Most of the items were very interesting to work on: Graphic and Typographic solution for wine labels, chocolate packaging, water bottles, Duo umbrellas (with fairuz’s famous rain song), imported food, and much more; all with an intercultural twist. The focus remained on making a balance between the initial El Hema identity and drawing a parallel line with the real HEMA look- that has changed a lot over the last year with the introduction of a revised look and feel.

Images and impressions from the actual El Hema Exhibition & store in Rotterdam.

El Hema project seems to always come with its own challenges and problematic issues. Amsterdam’s mediamatic exhibition was faced by an initial unpleasant reaction from the Dutch Hema department store. This year, the difficulties were faced by the fact that many organizations and parties were involved in the project, and not all of them shared necessarily the same vision on some key issues for the El Hema brand, particularly that the concept has moved from its initial “home”. Not to mention of course an incredible short deadline, by which an entire department store had to be designed!

By Tarek Atrissi

It has been an active end of the year, particularly with the lectures I have been invited to give at different international design schools and design conferences and events. Lecturing on design and visual culture has became a main part of academic activities, and I still find it an excellent opportunity to experience different design academic environments, but also a chance to meet other practicing designers and listen to their approach on design marked by different cultural and professional challenges.
In September 2008 I took part for the first time in the Society of News Design’s annual conference, held this year in Las Vegas. The three day’s conference offered exciting sessions in design, graphics, multimedia, typography, management and creativity, all with a bigger focus on Visual Journalism and design for the news sector. The conference was internationally driven, with several tracks and many sessions covering aspects of design that fit a wide range of interest. One of the lectures I enjoyed most was the talk of Andrew Devigal, “Telling data-rich interactive stories”, showcasing some outside-the-box case studies from the New York Times interactive approach to journalism. I Enjoyed as well the conference’s displayed selection of national and international archived newspapers, showing front pages of remarkable dates in history and forming a “mini news museum” in the hallways of the venue. On top of that, the conference had a special session dedicated to the Middle East, focusing particularly on the booming News Design industry in the Gulf. The track included Douglas Okasaki and Mohammed AlMezel from the Gulf news English daily and Ramzi Rajab from Al Emarat Al Youm Arabic Daily in the UAE. They presented the process of their newspapers’ current designs, as well as their views on growing and developing design scene in the Gulf. It was interesting as well to hear that the new design of the Khaleej times daily newspapr is the work of Paola Scher / Pentagram New York. My own lecture focused on Arab Visual Culture generally, and specifically going into the design for the news sector, and the typographic challenges and demands when designing News, either in print, TV, or in New Media, through case studies of projects we have developed at Tarek Atrissi Design.

From the Newspaper design archive displayed at the Las Vegas SND conference.

Another interesting lecture and workshop I gave was at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam; my second visit and involvement at the School in Rotterdam. The lecture and workshop were part of the “cultural diversity” week organized at the Visual Communication department of the school. Cultural diversity is a definition of the Netherlands nowadays, and maybe this definition is valid in Rotterdam more than anywhere else in Holland, where a large number of the “Moroccan”, “Turkish” , “Surinam” and “Antilleans” youth communities exist. Young people that are born and raised in Holland, yet considered as somehow foreigners (or “allochtonen”, the Dutch “untranslatable” word defining them). The student population at the Willem de Kooning Academy is not a reflection of the cultural diversity of the city of Rotterdam- generally the case as well in design schools overall in the Netherlands - suffering from the same lack of a more “hybrid” young student body. The workshop focused on analyzing the reasons behind this situation, and on thinking of innovative and creative methods to reach and attract the youth of the second generation immigrants in Holland; and make the WdKA in short and long terms steps a better reflection of the Dutch society.

Poster Series for Tarek Atrissi’s Lecture at SVA, September 2008. Designed by Sumayya Elsenan.

My trip in New York included two lectures at two of the most prestigious design schools in Manhattan, Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts. It was great to be for the first time at Parsons; but of course being back at SVA, at the MFA Design program where I graduated from, was an exciting place to be as a guest speaker. There is a creative energy at the department that- even for an Alumni- boosts your design ambitions, inspiration and excitements. My lecture addressed to the first and second years students of the program, came as part of the ten year anniversary event of the MFA Designer as Author program. The event was marked by the publishing of Steven Heller and Lita Talarico’s new book, The Design Entrepreneur, which summarizes really the essence of the graduate program of the school, and includes some of the most successful entrepreneurial projects developed at the School. My favorite part of the event was the distribution of book specially designed for the 10 years celebration, entitled: MFA-Z; a 10 year encyclopedic history of the MFA Design at the School of Visual Arts. The Publication, beautifully designed by 04 graduates Sam Eckersley and Stuart Rogers (RED design), included all the info one can possibly think of for about the program: Students, Graduates, faculty, rumors, memories, locations, first day at school, class clowns, mentors, quotes, and many other humorous statistics and

informational diagrams.

Preview of the 10 year encyclopedic history of the MFA Design at the School of Visual Arts, by Sam Eckersley and Stuart Rogers.

Finally, back in The Netherlands, and in the occasion of concluding the Exhibition “Arabic Graphics: the work of Tarek Atrissi”- an evening of Arabic Typography was organized at the De Levante foundation in Amsterdam, which included a brief introduction to the topic by Titus Nemeth, followed by two presentations by Thomas Milo and myself. An online recording of all three talks can be found on the following link thanks to Kaveh Bazargan.
My last lecture of the year took place at the Utrecht School of the Arts, on the topic of design entrepreneurship. The new year, 2009, will start with a lecture in Kuwait city as part of the “Nuqat ‘ala Alhuroof” seminar in end of January. Always exciting to be back in the Gulf.