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.