Mahmoud Kahil Awards Identity

At Tarek Atrissi Design, we developed the visual identity for the Mahmoud Kahil Awards, an annual event held in Beirut that celebrates excellence in comics, illustration, and editorial cartoons by artists from across the Arab world. The 2024 edition marked the 10th anniversary of the awards—a milestone that called for a bold and celebratory design approach.

We created a typographic visual identity that captured the spirit of the event and extended it across a wide range of applications: from the annual book documenting the work of the awarded artists, to the posters, banners, and printed materials used throughout the award ceremony. The identity was also applied in the exhibition design, as well as across various digital and promotional platforms.

A central element of the visual identity was the custom Arabic lettering style, developed specifically for the project. It blended influences from classical Arabic calligraphy with the expressive, display-oriented lettering often found in vintage Arabic comic books. This distinctive style was enhanced with playful, celebratory details—most notably in the transformation of diacritic dots into star-like shapes. A defining feature of the project was the integration of selected illustrations by award-winning artists directly into the visual language of the identity. The interplay between the expressive lettering and the rich, narrative-driven illustrations gave the compositions remarkable depth and texture—bridging tradition and storytelling with contemporary design sensibilities.

What made this project particularly meaningful was seeing Beirut at its best again—alive with creativity, culture, and celebration.

Project partners included the Mahmoud Kahil Award, Lina Ghaibeh, and the Arab Comics Center, with featured illustration work including the hands by Maya Shams, birds by Esraa Hedery, angel by Fadi Abou Hassan, woman with glasses by Mohamed Abd El-Khalick, and bomb/baby by Ahmed Rahma.