By Tarek Atrissi

I was glad to take part of the graphic design week in Saudi Arabia, organized by Dar El Hekma college in Jeddah, and witness the first event of its kind in the kingdom. On one hand, discovering the local charm of another Arab city was very exciting on all levels: Looking at the beautiful old areas of Jeddah; documenting the graphics and typography on the streets; and viewing closely wonderful examples of the traditional Hijazi architecture and style. On the other hand, the conference itself, entitled “Tawasol”, was a stimulating event that triggered a considerable local interest. Speakers included high profile international designers, design critics and communication experts such as Jonathan Barnbrook, Tea Triggs, Anja Lutz and Adbusters media foundation.
I personally enjoyed very much the lecture of Lebanese architect and artist Nadim Karam and his concepts and projects often narrating the “dreams of cities”: Projects such as the Archaic Procession urban art installation in Beirut Central District in 1997, a series of gigantic sculptures which I recall positively as a very curious addition to the city during my study years at the American University of Beirut. The talk of UAE national Mohammed Harib was highly appreciated by the audience: He is the creative mind behind the Middle East’s pioneering animated 3D series, Freej, a project celebrating the culture and tradition in the UAE through animated characters that literally became national heroes across the Emirates.

I gave a lecture and a workshop at the conference. The lecture was a critical look on emerging graphic design practice in the Arab world today. The workshop followed the same one day course module I gave in Kuwait a week earlier, consisting of a typographic lettering exercise that invited senior and junior graphic design students to “design” an Arabic word of their choice. Sketching the graphic and typographic endless possibilities of a specific word lead to very interesting results, some of which are previewed below. They ranged between calligraphic solutions, geometric ones, and freehand lettering style.

Selected work from the workshop. Top, right to left: Zainab Al Mashat, Nouf Ahmed Dahran , Marya Bakhsh, Alaa El Khereiji, Amnah Naghi, Amna Kamel.

All in all, I was most impressed I think by seeing the emerging graphic design scene in Saudi Arabia and the motivated young generation of local Saudi female designers highly interested in design and typography. It was not surprising then to pick up a local graphic design magazine, “Design”, initiated by one of the graduates of the graphic design department of Dar El Hekma college.

Our winning poster design proposal for the competition of designing the 31st edition of the Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpelier in France

By Tarek Atrissi

We have responded to the invitation to participate in the competition to design the poster for the 31st edition of the Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpelier (Festival international du Cinéma Méditerranéen de Montpellier). I am usually not eager to participate in design competitions, I feel these are many time more abusive than pitches: Clients tend to get the most amount of creative solutions done for “free” before choosing their favorite design- and hence eliminate any possibility for a healthy design process which usually involves a continuous communication between the client and the designer insuring progressive work development and resulting in a good final outcome. However, in this case, the organizing committee of the festival seemed organized and professional, and have rationalized the need and reasons for making this as an open competition. And of course, the elements of the competition seemed very appealing: A poster; a film festival; and a Mediterranean city!

We presented several proposed designs and our poster design shown above ended up being selected as the winning entry. It is now used as well as the basis for all promotional material for the festival. What made this specific design win? I didn’t get to see the work of other designers, but I know that we had some other interesting proposal which were more typographically driven, since I am very interested in visually expressing Mediterranean typography. The design based on the curious narrative photo of the 50’s style female model seemed to be the most different and eye catching to the event organizers, who felt this represents the festival image best despite it being different from the posters style developed for the last 30 years. Not surprising, there is something magical about having a woman on a poster, particularly when it becomes part of a graphic and typographic layout and at the essence of the design treatment; as opposed to being used under a “sex-sell” approach. I am surprised to see how many of our designed posters actually revolve around the graphic and typographic exploration of a woman’s illustration or photograph. A topic that can be explored on its own, particularly when it comes to the notion of the use of the woman as an element in Graphic Design, specifically in the Arabic side of the Mediterranean world.

Preview from the workshop process: Above: Lettering by Anwar Ghader . Below: Sketches and process work by various participants.

By Tarek Atrissi

I just returned from a short yet a very productive visit to Kuwait, where I gave a public lecture and where I conducted two workshops: one for the students at the American University in Kuwait; and another one open for professional practicing designers. All part of the Nuqat ‘ala el Hurrouf conference, a new and promising event that is very much needed in the country. The theme of the event focused on one hand on Arabic design and typography, and on the other hand on creative Arabic copywriting for designers.
One day workshops are always very challenging to plan, and for this event I came up with a new assignment of Arabic lettering to explore with the participants. Between the art of classic traditional Arabic calligraphy and the contemporary digital Arabic type design skills, lies the discipline of Arabic lettering, a task often in the hand of graphic designers in the context of Branding, logo design and title design. This workshop consisted then of a typographic exercise inviting designers to focus on one Arabic word, and to explore it typographically in all possible visual ways. The focus was to try to “design the word”: to look beyond the letters and experiment with sketching the word in order to give it the most unique and memorable shape.

Workshop work by Sara Al Falah (top) , Noura Al Naggar (middle) and Muneera Al Qinaie.

The results were very exciting and I share here a selection of the exploration on the Arabic word “Thaqafa” (culture) and other sketches of different words. The practical side of the workshop was backed up with a presentation of case studies that rationalized and presented different methods and approaches that designer can follow as they work with Arabic lettering.

Thanks to Khalid Al-Growi, I collected some charming vernacular printed advertizing material from Kuwait, material that is always interesting to look at and study its typographic and graphic old style treatment.

Vernacular printed advertizing work from Kuwait.

More workshops in Abu Dhabi
By Tarek Atrissi

I always enjoy returning to the HCT colleges in Abu Dhabi to conduct the yearly workshops for the graphic design students at the Women’s college. With the first and second year students, I give a one week workshop offering introductory design courses that are essential skills in my opinion for any designer aiming to work in the Arab world. The first workshop focuses on creating Arabesque patters and on exploring the art of creating Arabic geometric patterns. The second workshop consists of an introduction to the use of Arabic calligraphy in design. Students are taught a basic overview of the general Arabic calligraphic styles and are then asked to find local calligraphers in Abu Dhabi: Each student will brief the selected calligrapher and art direct his process, to eventually use the commissioned artwork in a printed piece the student will design. Besides enjoying the final work developed by the local students, it is always exciting to discover through the students some of the hidden talented Arabic calligraphers in Abu Dhabi, and encouraging the students to bridge a working relationship with them.

Selected work from the workshop. Above: work of Fatima Al Baloushi. Below: Work of Sheikha al Marzouqi