The Desk interviews is an in-depth interview series with Arab Designers and Makers taking their desks as a focal point to view their practice. This is an interview with Mohamed Gaber. The Desk’s” name is borrowed from Mark Gardner’s film of the same name. Mark’s short documentary sought to explore the relationship between a worker and their desk and how that reflects their personality. Design Repository is curious to explore the same while adding an intention of scribing these interviews in the Now and therefore attempts to record a moment in time for future generations so that they can find something about now when they look back.

The interviews will run around the year, with a new designer/maker and a new desk each month. Our next interviewee is the Egyptian type designer: Mohamed Gaber.

Q: Please introduce yourself (Name, age, nationality, and title) and what you do.

What you do:

This question is an excellent opportunity to explain the title I now label myself with; A Designer. Previously I used to call myself a “Multidisciplinary designer, with a focus on Arabic type design,” but that was too long and annoying. Now, I am simply a designer focusing mainly on Arabic type making. My practice revolves around studying, researching, and designing Arabic type. I still enjoy the multidisciplinary nature of the practice of Design broadly, which allows me to work on various projects from type design, web design, graphic Design, and textile design to even footwear Design.

The broader term designer allows me to be flexible in how I engage with each project. Sometimes my work intersects with performance and technology, so I become a performer within my work. Other times it intersects with fine art, and I become a designer/visual artist.

So I stopped worrying about picking the accurate label usually attached to “designer.”

Q: What made you get into Design?

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I’ve been interested in Design for as long as I remember. However, I never knew how to get into it because of my upbringing. I grew up in extreme poverty with minimal access to education, let alone indulging the privilege of having interests and hobbies (which was what Design seemed to me at first). It wasn’t till the early 2000s that I had my first computer through a government initiative by Suzanne Mubarak known as the “Suzanne Mubarak Digital Literacy Initiative.” This initiative allowed me to buy a computer and pay for it on a six-years installment plan. This first device was pivotal; it allowed me access to pirated Adobe products and a slow internet connection, which helped me learn a trick or two about Design(ing) through online tutorials.

Most importantly, it opened my eyes to the early days of the opposition movement on the internet. Back then, they were known as “المدونين – The Bloggers.” A group of young activists from all kinds of political backgrounds were trying to make space for some freedom on the internet and expose the corruption and injustice of the Mubarak regime.

Therefore, while learning these technical skills, my awareness of the political role design can play also flourished. By the end of 2006 and early 2007, I started a blog called “يساري مصري – Egyptian Leftist” – a cheesy name I know. Through this blog, I started applying the tutorials I learned to make anti-Mubarak posters, protest calls to action graphics, and banners for the detainees. By 2008 I was known among this community as “جابر بنرات – Gaber Banarat.” During the same year, I made an emblem that practically proved to me the critical role Design play in politics.

In April 2008, a group of activists and I planned a call for “The General Strike” on the 6th of April 2008. I wanted to create something for that day that was a little too ambitious, so I used the word “ثورة – Revolution” in it. Even though, at the time, the political landscape did not indicate that any political activity was possible, let alone a revolution. Nonetheless, the idealism of “Cyberspace” allowed me to go wild with my ambition.

So I made a typographic lockup of the words “كن مع الثورة – Be With The Revolution,” and like any other design I made at the time, I published it on the internet under a Creative Commons license. Yet, unlike most of the design work I have created, this one went viral and became a popular slogan. Suddenly, and for whatever reason, these words started circulating rapidly and spreading on the internet; they were everywhere. Not only online but also made its way to the physical world and was found on banners in several marches that day.

This was real-time proof of the power of Design and its potential to impact society positively. It was such a profound experience that it affected all my subsequent choices to this day. I have become conscious about my choices regarding what kind of projects I get involved in and what projects I avoid.

I belong to the left side of the political spectrum. From that perspective, I started to reject the capitalist role that the graphic designer was playing—at the time, only another gear in the wheels of capitalism. That is why I was conscious about the projects I wanted to participate in. Even though I did not have the economic privilege of making such decisions readily, I had many pressing financial responsibilities, such as supporting my mother and younger sister. May her soul rest in peace.

I kept on learning through a process of trial and error. And in 2009, I came across the possibility of using custom fonts on the internet. At the time, the support of CSS3 made that possible, and the rapid wide spread of smartphones increased the demand for such a technology to move fast.

I felt inspired and motivated to design an Arabic typeface optimized explicitly for readability on the screen. With minimal knowledge about the technicality of font making, I stepped into the experiment after securing a small fund from Google (ME). To pursue the project, I invited my friend and graphic designer Mofa, known as “Ganzeer,” to be my partner. The experiment could have yielded more successful results. Yet, it was an eye-opener to the world of Arabic type making and a realization of how much work is needed to enrich what was a neglected Arabic digital font library back then. And that is how I slowly got into Design.

Q: Can you take us through your design process? Choose your favorite project, and please walk us through its process from start to finish, challenges, and learnings.

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I can’t talk much about my favorite project in its full scope as it is not yet released. Nonetheless, I can walk you through the process, challenges, and learnings.

I partnered with Khaled Hosney, him being the Lead engineer, and myself as the Lead designer on the project. With this project’s scope, it was essential to have consultants representing the different geographical locations of readers and users of this typeface.

I decided early in the project to intentionally inform every design choice with archival research and manuscripts practices. This conscious decision was necessary because the project aimed to tackle a controversial topic: “type-matchmaking,” which is no longer a term I like to use.

The process of designing contemporary Arabic typefaces should be rooted in historical practices to prevent any further oversimplification of the Arabic letterform. My first proposal emphasized that the historical continuity of the Arabic letterform is far more important than just making the Arabic “good enough to stand next to the Latin.”

The proposal sparked an inspiring discussion with a former consultant around the question of “what makes an Arabic typeface modern?”.

While this might appear like a simple question, it is not. Not only for the Arabic script but in general; a consensus on what is contemporary in type design doesn’t necessarily exist. During my research, I realized that Latin type-designers also ask the same question. That made me wonder: If Latin designers are still grappling with this question, with the long history of the Latin type-making field being at the heart of the industrial revolution and extending to the digital era. Then, what makes the question of “Modern” for a script that had a few setbacks in the early days of that technology?

This question of what a “Modern” Arabic letterform looks like triggered more extensive research. While finding a definitive answer is not possible only by conducting one study, I concluded that a particular Latin influence is often imposed on developing the Arabic script and many other underrepresented scripts.

Arab type designers need to be aware of this while thinking about “Modernization” to limit the continuation of more Latinized Arabic fonts. We must end this chapter and start a new one where we question everything from the metrics used for Arabic letters required to reflect its authenticity to how the stem modulation should act as the design moves toward lighter and heavier weights. Realizing that some solutions that work for the Latin letterforms don’t suggest they will work for Arabic.

We don’t have the same technological limitations our predecessors struggled with 100 years ago. This should encourage us to break more boundaries and work on preserving our culture as we guide its evolution rather than contributing to diluting it within the Western canon.

So after deciding that, even if we don’t have a clear answer to what modern is and it’s something we keep on grappling with, I knew at the very least that historical continuity is a must. So, my process has been an iterative one, looping back and forth between researching and sketching, and I continuously went back to كراسات الخطاطين for guidance.

To conclude, the challenge of engaging with this question which arose from the project process, was not a small feat. Different people will have different views on what constitutes “modern.” Yet, everyone should constantly engage with this question; at least, I will do that. This will be vital in helping the community reach a consensus (or not) about the subject of modernity which might inform our design pedagogy and help students on their critical thinking journey.

Q: If you had to write a definition of Graphic Design for academic purposes, what would that be? And would you have one for Arabic Graphic Design? If yes, what would it be, and in what ways is it different?

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I don’t care for the definitions used for academic purposes, and my definition of Graphic Design will be the same in any context. For me, it’s the intersection of beauty and functionality, where problem-solving meets aesthetics. The definition wouldn’t be different based on the language of the content. Nonetheless, graphic designers from the Southern part of the planet should approach Graphic Design with an awareness of its political weight and not blindly follow Northern aesthetics as if they are universal beauty standards. We should stop trying to squeeze our culture into the rigidness of Northern grids.

Q: Who are your favorite Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one current?

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1. Nathan Doss
2. Naguib Hawawini (tho he is of Syrian origins but lived all his life and died in Egypt)
3. Amy Nimr

Q: Who are your favorite non-Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one current?

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1. Yohji Yamamoto(Japan)
2. Jerry Lorenzo (USA),
3. Ali Al-Masry (Jordan)

Q: You received a master’s degree from Sandberg Institute; how was it studying in the Netherlands? What is the most valuable thing you learned there, and tell us briefly about your master’s thesis?

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I’m figuring out how to honestly share my experience about studying at Sandberg without causing more trouble than what I left Sandberg with. It has not been the most fulfilling experience; it was almost a scam. In my opinion, the reason for this is how Academia has been entirely devoured by capitalism.

I applied for this master’s program to allow myself the time to finalize a research project I had already started a year before. I wanted to devote some time to studying the evolution of the Arabic letterform.

Before Sandberg, I had no proper education as a self-taught designer who dropped out of mechanical engineering. So pursuing a postgraduate degree without a BA kept me motivated. However, it also gave me a sense of insecurity, thinking that I would need to do double the work to keep up with the level of knowledge at this Dutch institute. After a short period, that proved not to be the case, and my practical knowledge exceeded what the institute or its curriculum could offer.

So the thing I learned the most from this experience is that while an academic frame can offer you the space to focus on your field of research, you can also achieve that outside the Academia. If you are a Southern citizen, you can also save yourself the hassle of dealing with racism, fetishizing your culture, and bursting the bubble of white privilege.

Instead, you can save this energy for learning and building systems for knowledge-sharing within your community. I started then to focus on working with fellow type designers and researchers to find the knowledge and experiences I couldn’t find at Sandberg through the discussion I hosted in The Type Platform, which ended up feeding my thesis research more than what was happening in Sandberg.

My thesis investigates the evolution of Arabic letterforms through history under the influence of changing technologies. It highlights the key moments in the history of Arabic script, from the artistic essence of medieval calligraphy to the digital age.

Informed by archival research and scrutinizing manuscripts traditions, the thesis analyzes the key elements influencing the evolution of Arabic letterforms. Highlighting the sophistication of calligraphy and the sociopolitical role Arabic calligraphy played at a certain point in history. It also looks into the technological constraints of machinery initially conceived for the Latin script and its impact on the development of Arabic letterforms in modern times.

The paper also celebrates a new era for Arabic type-making backed by rigorous disciplinary-specific research. This is helping develop a better sense of responsibility towards quality standards and a better representation of the Arabic script’s history and culture.

Q: You are the founder of Typeplatform and the co-founder of TypeLab Sandberg. Can you tell us a little about their story and ethos?

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In the fall of 2020, I arrived at Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Once I settled, I noticed that there needed to be a typography-focused space dedicated to students in Sandberg. A space where they can experiment with type. So I immediately started looking for a chance to make this available, and that’s where I met with Farah Fayyad, a Lebanese typographer and my colleague in the same department. She shared the same passion for type exploration as me, and that was one of the firmest ties that got us together.

At the time, I initially thought about some typographic experiments and exercises that the space could be built around. When we first started, I shared these with Farah, and she was very supportive and worked with me on making that happen. We started TypeLab at Sandberg, where we conducted a couple of workshops. One was “Typofiction,” which explored typography as a building block in world-building practices. The workshop was very successful, so we took it outside Sandberg to the V&A and VCU in Qatar.

At the time, I initially thought about some typographic experiments and exercises that the space could be built around. When we first started, I shared these with Farah, and she was very supportive and worked with me on making that happen. We started TypeLab at Sandberg, where we conducted a couple of workshops. One was “Typofiction,” which explored typography as a building block in world-building practices. The workshop was very successful, so we took it outside Sandberg to the V&A and VCU in Qatar.

TypePlatform is an entirely different project. It sprouted while working on my thesis research. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to make the discussions around the topic more open and engage with the community of type designers and researchers. Therefore, instead of holding these discussions in closed zoom calls, I decided to make this an open discussion.

At the core of TypePlatform is a focus on underrepresented scrips, starting with Arabic. The discussion would happen monthly with a type designer/researcher talking about their definition of “Modernity for Arabic Type.” How they approach bi-scriptual type design processes and their methodology of engaging with the calligraphic history of the Arabic script to inform and enrich their practice of modern digital type making.

The discussions were all live and recorded/shared on youtube under open licenses to create an archive for these discussions and knowledge that, in my opinion, are very important to have and make accessible.

Q: Who are your mentors, if any?

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I don’t think I ever had a consistent mentor throughout my life, but I met many people who impacted my growth, and learned a lot from them. Sometimes I saw them as mentors, even if we didn’t explicitly label the relationship. If I mention names, I will forget some. Still, those are some of the people (I remember): Abdo Al-Bermawy an amazing Egyptian visual artist that opened my eyes to many things, inspired me, and supported my growth during my early days as a designer.

Another is Dave Crossland, a director who describes himself as “I free fonts 💸 I work at Google on fonts.” I learned a lot from discussions with him on liberating type and the value of open licenses from practical lenses. Khaled Hosny a fantastic type designer who, in my opinion, is the most talented font engineer ever to work on the Arabic script. As I said, there are many others, but those helped me a lot through our work together and offered me chances to learn, work, and grow.

Q: Describe what does your desk mean to you?

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My desk hasn’t been very stable for the last four years, being between Cairo, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Beirut. In a way, I moved around a lot, which in retrospect, is surprising to me because I am someone who appreciates stability and worships routine. In fact, the lack of stability can massively affect my creative flow. Yet I have developed a trick to make myself feel settled. I surround myself with houseplants all the time wherever I go. It helps me feel grounded and rooted in my space. Most of the time, those plants are eventually put up for adoption. However, some of those plants end up moving around with me, the same way I travel with my desk.

Q: When you are creatively blocked, what are some ways you overcome this block?

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I don’t have one magical solution, and I try to avoid getting it in the first place. Yet, when it happens, I always watch videos of Takashi Amano working on one of his aquarium build-ups. Amano was a very inspiring Japanese Aquarist and had his own approach to freshwater aquarium layout design. His philosophy of Design is very inspiring to me as he mainly relies on the smallest grain of sand/rock or tiny grass to build his immersive layouts. He does one of the most challenging design tasks: mimicking nature within enclosed spaces. When asked, he always admitted that this is impossible to achieve. On the contrary, I believe he achieved that in many of his aquarium designs. His meticulous attention to detail makes you forget that you are looking at a man-made structure and not a piece of nature that evolved over hundreds if not thousands of years to get to be this beautiful.

Q: You work at the intersection of Graphic Design, Type Design, and Art. How does working in this intersection influence your work?

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The best way to describe this is to understand how I ended up at this intersection, as I didn’t necessarily make one conscious decision one day to be here.

Graphic Design was the gateway for me towards it all, to type design. Before I got into GD, I was focused on calligraphy, which can describe this intersection of Design and Art while feeding typographic knowledge, at least for the Arabic script. Over time, type design has become the lens through which I situate myself within each side of my practice. For instance, I do Web Design as a type designer who designs for the web, Graphic Design as a type designer practicing Graphic Design, and even when it comes to Visual Art, most of the topics that pique my interest come from the history of Arabic type. This benefits me; it makes me more comfortable in my practice and gives me a unique perspective on the field I am part of.

Q: What are three pieces of advice you can give to a young designer embarking on a journey similar to yours?

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1- Not to fear failure and mistakes. Many young designers fall for that, but it’s even more so the case for experienced designers. They get crippled by the fear of failure or making mistakes. We will make mistakes anyways, and we will fail sometimes, but the only way to find where your true passion lies is through failing. We learn through mistakes; sometimes, the lessons are immediately apparent, and in others, you will only learn the lessons in retrospect.

2- Try to be mindful of the things that inspire you. A healthy level of skepticism is essential when you are out there looking for inspiration. Question what you see and don’t accept it as it is. Almost always, things have other levels of meaning than what they reveal to you at first glance.

3- For teachers and students, question and be aware of the implications of your primarily Eurocentric design education.

4- Examining your culture is where authentic inspiration comes from. Dig deep into your visual memories, be curious about your environment, and question and investigate how its visual language change and evolve. It will teach you a lot and keep you from being trapped in a taste that doesn’t necessarily represent you.

The Desk is an in-depth interview series with Arab Designers and Makers taking their desks as a focal point to view their practice. “The Desk’s” name is borrowed from Mark Gardner’s film of the same name. Mark’s short documentary sought to explore the relationship between a worker and their desk and how that reflects their personality. Design Repository is curious to explore the same while adding an intention of scribing these interviews in the Now and therefore attempts to record a moment in time for future generations so that they can find something about now when they look back.

The interviews will run around the year, with a new designer/maker and a new desk each month. Our next interviewee is the Egyptian designer: Engy Hashem.

Q: Please introduce yourself (Name, age, nationality, and title) and what do you do?

Q: You are a single mother of two beautiful girls and a designer, how do you juggle between those two?

A: Barely. On some days, ‘barely’ seems to be the term closest to the situation. On others, there is flow and I am able to balance both simultaneously. Farida and Nelly are of different ages and have different interests and needs, but Nelly who is four is pure havoc so most of the focus-driven work needs to be done after she is put to bed, before she rises, or while she’s swallowed in the metaverse playing Roblox.

They do, however, fuel a very primal creative side of me. My children generally prefer the messier, less disciplined side of things so they appreciate it when I endorse painting on tables or drawing on walls; impulsive paper pulp making, or impromptu acting theatrics.

Farida, my eldest, presents her creativity not only through palpable creations but also through wit and sharp tongue, constantly sharing reflections and stories about how she sees the world. I feel very privileged to be able to see matters through her and her sister’s perspectives alike.

Q: You work across calligraphy, typography, illustrations, and sometimes moving images. What do you think are the benefits of having more than one skill in your arsenal as a designer?

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I think it speaks to the nature of the field and how it’s moving forward. I remain quite reserved when it comes to new technologies and techniques as developing a new skill requires time and resources that I can’t afford in the way that I could in my early career.

However, “dabbling” in different creative expressions comes naturally to me. It’s a desire, and an instinct to explore ideas through the lens of different mediums, regardless of whether it will end up being part of the final outcome.

The way I see it is that everything is a story. Every person, object, piece of art, or design (architecture, furniture, a vase or otherwise) is telling a story, realized or not, intentionally or unintentionally. Various creative methods and skills are vital for me to be able to narrate these stories, be it for myself or my clients in both the fields of design and art.

Studying Graphic Design is one thing; it may hone your initial skills in composition and typography. However, with the constantly evolving nature of the field, from static to dynamic to interactive, eventually, what you want the project to achieve will dictate its best suited tools.

Q: Can you take us through your design process? Choose your favorite project and please walk us through its process from start to finish, challenges, and learnings?

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One of my favorite projects to date is the Khatt book. ‘Khatt: Egypt’s Calligraphic Landscape’ (Published 2018).

In 2016, Basma Hamdy, design professor at Virginia Commonwealth University – School of the Arts in Qatar, contacted me with the proposition to design Khatt: a book that would feature collected photographs by Noha Zayed of found typographic and calligraphic written expressions. A longtime admirer of Noha Zayed’s photographic journalling on Instagram through both her personal and ArabicTypography accounts, I said ‘I do’ before she could finish her sentence.

This project coincided with me moving back to settle in Cairo after a lifetime in my former home, Qatar. In retrospect, the process of this project proved to be a unique homecoming practice that cultivated both my cultural and geographical understanding of my new home through a simmering process that spanned approximately three years.

What is unique about this project specifically is the dynamic that flows between the different agents in the process (designer and author/s). This dynamic requires an open-mind for a different process; resisting the urge to cannonade the process with ‘design fundamentals’.

Although the book is essentially a documentation of visual instances and findings in public spaces, the journey of the photographs themselves remains quite personal to the documentor, as stated in an excerpt from Noha’s essay titled “Trucks: A moving canvas”

‘…the truck itself is a medium for self- expression… In a way, it becomes his public voice. For myself, I imagine a further function, unconnected to the driver, one that I can’t quite put my finger on. From personal experience, it seems that just at the moment I need to know it, be reminded of it, be told of it—I look up and there it is, the message I was missing: a verse of scripture, a line of poetry, a quotation or a time-worn piece of advice.‘

The process of “Designing” in the context of the book became synonymous with ‘sorting, analyzing, deciphering, classifying, arranging, clustering, grouping, regrouping, and mapping.’ This usually happened through intimate and regular tete-a-tete conversations, which gave rise to important questions about the book’s overarching narrative: how do we structure the book, which taxonomy should we use – geographical, scenic, thematic or poetic?

In parallel, I commenced experimenting with various page layouts while working on a simple format for the invitation document to be sent to the contributing essay writers. This document included highlighted referential images that vaguely signaled the various chapters of the book to inspire and initiate the conversation.

The (still existing) shared Dropbox folder between Noha, Basma and I is indicative of the rigorous image compartmentalization process that took place. Working with this level of organization allowed us to be precise with the various ‘found calligraphy’, from tuk-tuks to food-carts to advertisements. We micro-organised to eventually macro-synthesize the overarching narrative which would encapsulate both the photography and the written pieces.

After a few iterations, we decided to loosely work with these categories;

• Writings on vehicles
• On walls
• About faith
• About consumerism.

In the process of analyzing the photographs, we realized an overwhelming dominance of two particular surfaces (vehicles and walls) and topics (faith and consumerism). Therefore, we decided to structure the book this way.

As someone without the attention span for long, meticulous writing, I bestowed upon myself the task of fabricating memorable chapter titles and short melodic intros for the agreed upon taxonomies. One was: ‘Text Sells’, a chapter focusing on consumerist based writings such as advertisements, decorative typography on street carts, and carefully lettered shop signs. This was an obvious play on the age-old ad expression ‘Sex Sells’, a nod to its competitive, unabating nature.

Another was ‘Mark my Walls’ a slight twist on ‘Mark my words’, which provided the context for both casual city scrawls and authoritarian announcements.

At some point in the process, all of these paralleled efforts needed to converge to create a cohesive final project. This resulted in overnight editing, image correcting and finalizing to meet the print house deadline, the last minute inserts and exclusions as if by divine intervention, and the multiple FINALKHATTFOLDERs. This project manifested an energy of deliberate safe keeping; to seek, to relish and to preserve, not only the growingly endangered art form of hand lettering but the intuitive connections and meanings within it.

Q: If you had to write a definition of Graphic Design for academic purposes, what would that be? And would you have a different definition of Arabic Graphic Design? If yes, what would it be and in what ways is it different?

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Graphic Design is a wide field. It is static, kinetic, sometimes poetic, other times basic; experimental yet straightforward; aiming at function and delivery but best if not directly so.

To make this more comprehensible, I would say that Graphic Design is an environmentally sensitive, culturally informed attempt to narrate, visualize and assemble data to articulate a message or specific amount of information coherently.

Regarding the aspect of ‘a different definition of Arabic Graphic design’, I attempted to answer this in the aforementioned; with the ‘design being culturally informed’. This could be addressing, questioning or hitting on aspects that are relevant to the culture, whether that being its local language, ideologies, practices, symbols or otherwise.

Q: Who are some of your favorite Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one current? Please feel free to add more than one if you feel like one is difficult to pindown.

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I’m terribly bad at remembering names and there are also designers that I’ve come across visually before knowing who they are. The multi-disciplinary storytellers resonate with my aspirations, so the artist-designer-activist-architect-human kind of creative, Others, I admire for their diligence and innovation in their chosen field. I’ll attempt to list them in order of historical revelation, or whose work I was introduced to first throughout my studies and career:

1. Mohieddine Ellabbad
2. Helmi Eltouni
3. Adam Henein
4. Hani Mahfouz
5. Ganzeer
6. Inji Efflatoun
7. Omar El Nagdi
8. Waleed Taher
9. Salam Yousry
10. Celine Raffy

Q: Who are your favorite non-Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one current?
Please feel free to add more than one if you feel like one is difficult to pindown.

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Plenty. Again in order of historical revelation:

1. Jewad Selim- Iraq
2. Nicholas Blechman – USA
3. Mehdi Saeedi – Iran
4. Rana Salame – Lebanon
5. Mohamed Melehy – Morocco
6. Homa Delvaray – Iran
7. Mona Chalabi – Iraq / USA
8. Lujain Abulfaraj – UAE

Q: How do you get inspiration for your projects?

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I’m reminded of a quote by Master Sculptor Adam Henein I came across in a documentary about his life (directed by Hesham El Shafie), where he said “I don’t believe much in inspiration. I’m not denying its existence, it’s there, but I don’t linger much there. The moral is, you enjoy what you’re working on, so you work on it all the time… inspiration comes from the act of working itself, it doesn’t come down on you from the outside.’

He went on to say ‘Well, what is basically the source of art? Art would certainly generate from nature. Man looks and sees and watches forms all the time and everywhere. He accumulates a stock of shapes and forms, the larger this stock, the richer the vocabulary of the artist.’

This is very good guiding advice to the deamer-experimenter-procrastinator type like myself; to focus on developing the work and to consciously enrich my vocabulary. So yes, I tend to take a lot of pictures. Especially during long walks and commutes. They’re usually of vernaculars; typography and calligraphy, patterns and color blocks, symbols and icons, and people – but low key with the people, as my observance of certain behaviors and body language including gestures are usually memorized rather than documented.

This collection of data (visual vocabulary) will usually initiate concepts for various projects, such as my entry for the Cairo Prints Exhibition (2021) “Fehras Al Tareeq.” This was intended to cite a selection of Microbus sign language witnessed along the infamous Ring Road.

Looking up and reading into the different schools of art has also played an important role in cultivating (hopefully) a rich visual vocabulary; a journey that started while I was in school and persists till this day. There is always that name of an artist, painting or era in the back of your mind waiting to be revisited. Naive art (Primitivism) in particular is one of my favorites; both aesthetically and historically, and how it organically grew from being a ‘marginal’ art practice into a recognised art school. It is characterized with autodidacticism or self-learning, making it seem primitive or raw, but is very much rooted in authentic culture.

This primitive or self-taught nature is close to the exploration phase in my process or my children’s verbal articulations in an attempt to conceive meaning of the world as they grow. Engaging with my kids and being around these traits always reminds me to not lose this “naive” sense of wonder and curiosity.

Q: You have a dense pinterest page with a lot of pinned topics, what do you think the role of pinterest and its similar platforms in the designers workflow these days?

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I was introduced to Pinterest in late 2011, nearly a year after its launch. I initially used it for personal interests, like grouping my favorite furniture, fashion styles or craft projects. With the design process, it comes in handy for a number of things: when curating mood boards, as visual stepping stones of sorts, to help clients understand the visual direction or tone of the project using reference imagery to support these different directions and rationals.

It also facilitates the collaboration process when working with a team, whether through multiple members curating a board and later discussing it or upload ing process work; allowing everyone to literally be on ‘board.’

The process of pinning on Pinterest isn’t too far off from collage making and scrapbooking; an activity I believe many of us either practice still, or are at least familiar with. Even the terminology of the platform pays tribute to the aforementioned. We have simply replaced scissors and tape with screenshotting and trackpad clicks.

Q: Describe what does your desk mean to you?

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I’ve had many desks during my time. Due to the nature of living in the Gulf, being born and raised there, no home is a forever home. So some desks I’ve had to forgo. When I moved to Cairo, I moved the essentials, this current desk being the official dining table at my former household in Qatar. It evolved during the past six years to be my go to desk for anything that requires a large flat space; mainly hand lettering and calligraphy.

When scratches and bumps started to appear on its surface, I attempted to conserve it modestly, then not so modestly; to the point of intentionally vandalizing it. The glass top was an attempt to maintain its wood surface that later allowed for it to become a visual memoir of sorts; an open sketchbook, a relic photo album, a pandora’s box of current findings and drawn out thoughts, a time-capsule.

The room where the desk is quickly began to mirror it. This started specifically when I re-ventured into painting larger canvases.

Q: When you are creatively blocked what are some of the ways you overcome this block?

✄

All projects usually start with a process of deep thinking about directions and ideas in a self-reflective way, and the aesthetic choices that accompany them. That can take a considerable chunk of my ideation timeline (which is always the first stage in my thinking process). This tends to be followed by the act of visualizing the ideas in more tangible forms. Although I have done this over and over for the past 10 and some years, it is still daunting putting pen to paper (or stylus to screen) and actually attempting to visualize an idea.

My humble findings after studying and practicing design since the early 2000s is that blocks are inevitable, be it distraction, lack of energy or being creatively drained. These are all valid reasons to pause, re-assess and attempt to resolve the blockage. If I am creatively blocked in one project, I could switch to another project, since I usually work on multiple projects at the same time and they are more likely to overlap. Sometimes it’s good to do something completely unrelated, just to let out some steam. This could be writing, reading, cooking or dancing. This switching allows the thoughts to flow freely which usually resolves my initial block.

Another methodology (used specifically on branding projects) is that I attempt to become a user persona. So instead of Engy, 34, mother of two, Designer and Artist (who needs to get to the nursery fast before they apply a late fees penalty, I am Omar, 22, recent college graduate, interning during a gap year before my masters. I’ll try to understand what Omar wants from, let’s say, the next upcoming ‘Coffee House Brand’. It needn’t be precise, but it opens up inspirational channels that I might not have come across as ‘Engy’.

Creativity prompts can somewhat be helpful too, like the popular Inktober or 30 Days of Type Challenges, albeit I usually lose focus and stamina half way through. You’ll know I’m at a complete block though if I get up to wash the dishes or fold laundry.

Q: You work on a lot of branding projects, is there a specific reason why you are drawn to branding?

✄

Yes. Branding or Identity Design forms a substantial bulk of my design portfolio. The opportunity to develop a client’s (sometimes incomplete) vision about a product or a service, into becoming a brand, is a treasured process; with the research, ideation and rationale development phases being the most critical and sometimes most overwhelming.

I completed my first branding project as a freshman in university for a chiropractic clinic. All I remember is that it was type based and that it was saved on a CD-ROM.

Although I now transfer work deliverables through the cloud, the element of using type or typography (manifested in logotypes) continues in most of my branding projects. Old habits do die hard. Though it is not a predetermined decision to use type, I easily slip into it sometimes; almost an automatic tendency and I practice challenging it by attempting more pictorial or abstracted options to not deny the brand at hand its possible potential.

Q: You are also a designer, an Art consultant, and an artist. How did your work within the Art space influence your practice as a designer and vice versa (if it did at all)?

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Art will always be my primary propagator. I gravitated towards Design due to my fondness and practice of Art growing up. My first job in a design agency only lasted about three months. I resigned in order to freelance and focus on projects that allowed me to be part of something that had more of a cultural or educational impact.

When Mathaf, The Arab Museum of Modern Art, opened in Qatar in 2010, I was fortunate to be a member of its core team as we worked towards its inauguration. My formal Western education in the Arts didn’t offer the regional context that my time at Mathaf did and I consider it foundational to my practice now.

As Lead Graphic Designer at Mathaf, I was exposed to an array of acclaimed artists and curators such as Shirin Neshaat, Wael Shawky, Dia Azzawi and the multidisciplinary curatorial platform artReoriented to list a few. I was tasked with designing and producing resources to market and educate on Mathaf’s various exhibitions and initiatives; bridging international art practices with the local community. I was introduced to the works of master artists such Mahmoud Mokhtar, Baya Moheiddine, Inji Efflatoun and countless other Arab Artists.

My current practice at TAM.Gallery is not that of a Graphic Designer (although I art directed and designed its current brand and several exhibition collaterals). I was inclined to add a shift to my career to sharpen my soft skills (pun intended) and therefore joined Tam’s Corporate Art team, where we, the gallery and the artists, work with corporations to deliver strategic art programs and solutions that add value to corporate environments.

The ultimate goal of creating Art is to interpret, comment on and document the present day experience to inspire, generate conversation, and broaden horizons that may eventually reshape understanding and culture. The role played by art institutions such as museums or galleries, is to accentuate that, protect it, market it, give a louder voice and wider reach than the artist might be able to do single-handedly. This is my current chosen environment.

Q: What are 3 pieces of advice you can give to a young designer embarking on a journey similar to yours? (Or if that is not a great formulation of the question, what would be your general reflections on the field of design now in Egypt as it stands?)

✄

I’ll attempt to reiterate the advice I give myself in a more mindful way, as we are not so compassionate with ourselves after all.

On Purging.
We are constantly surrounded, better yet, bombarded with visuals from our urban landscape and it would be naive to think that this doesn’t seep into the formulation of our aesthetic choices and preferences.

That’s why I consciously and deliberately create a safe mental space for myself to go through the things I get exposed to on a daily basis, and purge what needs to be purged. Allowing myself time and space to freely explore, sketch out those sometimes mediocre, ugly, or revolutionary ideas floating in my head. This usually relieves the pressure and anxiety of the creative process, freeing up space for new ideas to be generated. So make sure you purge.

On Perspective.
I’ve doubted many projects because I assessed their value from ulterior perspectives rather than my own. Self-critique is necessary, but constructively rather than cripplingly.

On Perfectionism and Patience
Admirable but attainable only through patient practice.

Done. What a rambler!

The Desk is in-depth interviews with Arab designers and makers in which their desk is the focal point. This is an interview with Engy Aly.”The Desk’s” name is borrowed from Mark Gardner’s film with the same name. Mark’s short documentary sought to explore the relationship between a worker and their desk and how that reflects their personality. Design Repository is curious to explore the same while adding an intention of scribing these interviews in the Now and therefore attempts to record a moment in time for future generations so that they can find something about now when they look back.

The interviews will be running around the year, with a new designer/maker and a new desk each month. Our third interviewee is the Egyptian designer: Engy Aly.

Q: Please introduce yourself (Name, age, nationality, and title) and what do you do?

I’m a “full-time-plus plus” independent graphic designer and I mostly work within the cultural realm, I also organize workshops and exhibitions that revolve around graphic design and visual cultures under the framework of a project titled ‘Sporadic Schooling’ – which was unfortunately put on hold when the pandemic struck, and sometimes I teach subjects within the graphic design curriculum. I also cook, take care of my plants, and play a LOT of tetris. My current tetris high score is 244,440 – level 30!

Q: What made you get into Design?

✎

I’m not so sure, during school I had no particular career direction in mind. I liked drawing and reading, which for years I did under the desk during some of my school classes. For the last few years of school I started collecting printed material that I found interesting; chocolate wrappers, tickets, business cards etc..

Only after I graduated from high school and started discussing possible university enrollments with my parents did I realize that I wanted to study design – specifically graphic design and not interior design, which is what they had both studied and still practice to this day. I still like interior design and am obsessed with certain home furniture and home accessories designers but have never done it professionally.

Q: You are now based in Cairo, before we delve in your design process, how do you process Cairo? As in, it could be visually overwhelming with a lot going on at all times, so how do you extract visual input from the city?

✎

I extract visual input from the memories and impressions others left us.

Other than my two years in Basel, Switzerland for my MFA, I have always lived in Heliopolis, Cairo. I can’t and don’t process the city. I find it extremely overwhelming – the overloaded sensory stimulations, the lack of understanding of personal space, the diminished idea of privacy and the abundant visual stimuli, and the juxtaposition between all these elements and the deserted and abandoned spaces around the new suburbs is a contrast I’m unable to process. So I live in my (somewhat versatile) bubble – I compartmentalize. Even before the pandemic, I used to only leave my home/studio around twice a week. The rest of the days I’m here working + resting + whatever else.

But that doesn’t mean the city doesn’t affect me, visually and otherwise. I just don’t intentionally look for inspiration or elements to extract and reuse, I don’t walk around researching or documenting a specific design era or visual element for example, because I no longer feel the sense of belonging to the majority of our urban landscape (more on that is in the text piece, ‘The Gradual Disappearance’). The traces left by those who lived in the city before us are what I find interesting, the pre-computer typographic signs, mostly on shops around the older neighborhoods, from the 60s to the early 90s, the diverse architectural structures between Modernist, Art Deco, and Art Nouveau, the reliefs and patterns on some buildings, bits and pieces all around. These are elements I can connect with and profoundly appreciate for their aesthetics, craftsmanship and endurance. But they also spark sadness because they are soon to vanish.

Q: Can you take us through your design process? Choose your favorite project and please walk us through its process from start to finish, challenges, and learnings?

✎

The project I would like to share is a personal project, not a commissioned one. It’s a project I’ve been working on for around 4 years – titled ‘Life Diagrams’.

These compositions emerged from my love of working manually, with analog tools and, from a curiosity about the tools and templates that architects use, my fascination with both natural and man-made organized structures and with the world of architecture in general. In the 70s and 80s architects worked on a lot of typographic shop signs and visual identities, as did artists, so there was an overlap that funneled into the visual output of that time period that I found interesting and was actually inspirational for this project. I also needed to take a break from commissioned projects and do something more spontaneous where the end result is neither expected nor calculated. So I started with the idea of drawing something resembling an infograph, a diagram that discusses or mocks patterns of living, situations and dilemmas. All the compositions are around A5 in size but come from two different sketch pads and are on two different kinds of paper.

I start with a simple and completely underdeveloped sketch, just a few lines or shapes here and there, as well as a title – usually a phrase or sentence with a satirical undertone. Because both title and visual elements are interrelated they shape each other throughout the process.. The way the composition develops is spontaneous and possibly slightly subconscious. Guided by the initial sketch, I start by putting one single element on the paper, using either pen, Letraset transfer sheets or Letraset stickers, that element inspires what comes next and so on. It’s free flowing in a way. Each step is dictated by the one that precedes it. Each new shape, form, texture or letter is also a reaction to what came before. I scan the different stages while working, which means I get to look at them with something of a fresh eye with each scan. I only get up from my desk when the composition is finished. And once done, I create an animation out of all or some of the steps I scanned along the way. The animation sometimes explains the way the composition has been built, and sometimes introduces new visual information endemic to the animation process such as a jittery movement enticing anxiety.

The topics are personal but humorous, like comparing my age to the size of my clothing, noticing the start of the appearance of multiple gray hairs, the stress caused by work emails, the general lack of sense in life – light stuff!

All compositions are in black and white, and some are inverted on photoshop just to play around with the visual weight of the elements, but other than that, there is usually minimal digital interference.

I work with a mix of material that was passed down to me from family friends and family members who worked as architects, and some new material that I can still find in stores. I have a large collection of Letraset sheets, both old and new (I love and treasure them deeply) and a large collection of architectural rulers and templates. So in a way I use a myriad of pre-existing forms, but I put them together, and ask them to converse in a new language; one that is humorous and spontaneous yet refined and calculated . Aiming to find a balance between the playfulness of the composition, and the meticulous nature of it as well.

A good example of this is the latest piece in the series, ‘Waiting for the World to Collapse’, A5, Mecanorma transfer sheets in Celtic and Gothique in addition to Mecanorma Symbols. This composition is from January 2021, which tells me I haven’t been in a proper mindset to create more since then. Except for one commissioned composition for Waraq in Beirut, Lebanon a few months ago.

The composition discusses the constant state of uncertainty we are living in, from a slightly pessimistic view that suggests the end may just not be a positive one. I started with two concentric oval shapes and began adding elements from the inside out. I knew I wanted it to depict an explosion, but a slow and organized one.

The inner circle is composed of the letters forming the word DOOM, set in Gothique 36 pts, and the outer circle is set in Celtic 20 and 48 points. It’s an imaginary restricted explosion in outer space…

Q: If you had to write a definition of Graphic Design for academic purposes, what would that be? And would you have a different definition of Arabic Graphic Design? If yes, what would it be and in what ways is it different?

✎

Depending on who I’m addressing it could be: ‘Translating a written brief into a visual, or a group of different format visuals, while taking into consideration the limitation of time, budget, and the requirements of the commissioner’. This would be one of the definitions I would give students for example. Or ‘Working with different visual elements to create a composition that portrays a message, a feeling or gives an abstract impact’.

I wouldn’t define Arabic Graphic Design differently, it follows the same basic rules and parameters but originates from the region: either directly through the designers living and working in the region or maybe more obliquely through designers with a regional background living elsewhere or also possibly just through the topic, content and use of relevant design elements.

Q: Who are your favorite Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one current?

✎

Mohieddine Ellabbad, not only because he was a great designer but because he was also a writer and he established different entities and workshops, so to quote Eames once again (as I have in an essay before), he took his pleasure seriously!

I find his work conceptually profound yet instinctive in its aesthetic quality.

Choosing a single current designer is more tricky because I like a lot of people’s work for different reasons. So please spare me this question.

Q: Who are your favorite non-Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one current?

✎

Naming just one puts that person in a holy and elevated position which is something I would like to avoid, so here are a few of my favorites:
Ikko Tanaka (1930–2002)
Wolfgang Weingart (1941–2021)
Charles and Ray Eames (1907–1978, 1912–1988)
HAY – to me, their products make life a little more enjoyable!

Q: You are not only a designer, you are an educator too, can you tell us why you were drawn to teaching, and what you learn from it as a designer?

✎

I don’t currently teach, but I look forward to going back to teaching sometime. So I’m not sure if the label fully fits.

I think there’s a certain form of isolation when you freelance. And that’s what drew me to doing my MFA at The Basel School of Design (HGK FHNW) in 2012, I was in a joint program with the University of Illinois in Chicago. By being exposed to different mentors from both universities and through their different forms and styles of sharing knowledge, I became intrigued by the relationship between teacher and student and thought I’d find it enjoyable. Of course teaching is at times quite frustrating, but it’s fulfilling to see students develop with time. Some of their results are always great surprises, and in general, if it’s a good academic environment then it’s fantastic to be working with people who have the same interests and concerns. I also learn a lot from the students through the ongoing class conversations.

In addition to that, as a designer in Cairo, I already live in a bubble, teaching is an intersection of this bubble with other bubbles – people who are academically interested in some of the topics I am interested in, opening room for collaborations and discussions.

Through teaching, the idea that process and experimentation are the most important elements became even stronger.

Q: You were amongst the people who were working for fileclub? Some might say that there is a similar thread weaving through the works of all the people who worked there. Do you think if we look back at that moment, we can identify a design school?

✎

Mmmm.. I don’t see any similar threads, maybe that’s an interesting point you and I can discuss over coffee sometime.

Fileclub was definitely a phenomenon – it was a group of talented and inspiring individuals who produced wonderful work, work that was locally way ahead of its time. I was lucky to be part of that studio environment for a few years. But it was not a school, a school creates a direction, invents or develops a style. This was not the case. We were good at digesting Western design trends and finding a way to use the concepts for local projects – but these ideas in themselves were not novel and were certainly not our invention. I was in Fileclub from 2006 to 2009 and they closed in late 2009 I think.

Q: I personally think of you as a secret mentor? Do you have a secret or non-secret mentor?

✎

I appreciate that, Moe. Nice to know! I’m flattered!
I maybe have an imaginary one; Wolfgang Weingart.

Weingart, was a typographer who’s work transcended typography, he worked with a multitude of tools, paper, ink, type,film, and even tissue paper to name a few. His work was serious but humorous and was always full of surprises. He worked with trial and error as a way of discovery. I find his experiments, printing using the back of the metal type characters for example, to be astonishing, wonderful, concrete, abstract and poetic – mixed with a dose of darkness due to the nature of the material.

His myriad experiments with the letter M, which he began in 1962 and systematically developed over the years, are phenomenal – especially when you see the originals. I wish I could shrink and live inside those printed pages for a few hours! Just imagine yourself walking through the letters with their repetition and distortion, navigating your way around them and stepping out and walking through the white spaces too..

One of the things I admire immensely is that some of his typographic work was less dependent on legibility and more focused on the potential of surprising results through the manipulation of the image by using simple acts like rotation, repetition, slanting, distortion and scaling. Seems basic but it isn’t.

I had the pleasure of meeting Weingart in person in 2014 at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich where he had his retrospective exhibition ‘Weingart Typography (Weingart Typografie)’, so the imaginary and the real intersected, which made his work even more tangible to me.

Q: Describe what does your desk mean to you?

✎

Office space, dining space, the reason for my knee pains!
My office space is my main space, my desk is in the main open area of the apartment, strategically close to the kitchen! The area also functions as a living room, and when I have guests over for dinner, I move the computer to another room and the desk transforms into a dining table. I spend a looooot of time on that desk.

Q: When you are creatively blocked what are some of the ways you overcome this block?

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I mostly realize that I’m blocked when I notice that I haven’t produced anything worthwhile in a few hours. I usually try to find a way around that but when it does not work, I get out of the house for a bit, if it seems that the blockage will not clear up anytime soon I ask for a deadline extension!

I was lucky, the past two years, to work with people who were truly understanding, and we all accommodated (within production timelines and limitations of course) each other’s physical and mental health needs and slowed down or paused projects when needed.

Q: Post pandemic, do you intend to continue Sporadic schooling?

✎

I think the term post pandemic means different things to different people. I am personally only starting to get out of my bubble and am not yet confident or comfortable with the idea of inviting guests and organizing events. So for now I’m keeping the program on hold while also reassessing some of my programming choices, structures and formats. The reward of all this will be that I have to go through the excruciating process of applying for funding again!

Q: What are 3 pieces of advice you can give to a young designer embarking on a journey similar to yours?

✎

I would prefer not to give advice. Being older doesn’t necessarily mean I know better. This older-person-giving-younger-person-advice-thing makes me uncomfortable. It’s always a little patronizing no matter how it’s phrased. I would instead maybe ask us to make our lives more enjoyable through:

Sharing references and research material whenever possible.
Openly discussing pricing and finding a way to regulate the calculation of the fees so we all get fair payments for the work we do.
Push for better work conditions.

The Desk is an in-depth interview series with Arab Designers and Makers taking their desk as a focal point to view their practice. “The Desk’s” name is borrowed from Mark Gardner’s film with the same name. Mark’s short documentary sought to explore the relationship between a worker and their desk and how that reflects their personality. Design Repository is curious to explore the same while adding an intention of scribing these interviews in the Now and therefore attempts to record a moment in time for future generations so that they can find something about now when they look back.

The interviews will be running around the year, with a new designer/maker and a new desk each month. Our second interviewee is the multifaceted Egyptian designer: Islam Zayed.

Q: Please introduce yourself (Name, age, nationality, and title) and what do you do?

I am the current Creative Design Head at EVA Pharma, I work with many designers to revamp, broaden and refine the company’s visual image. When I’m not doing that, I am pursuing ways to hone my skill and my own personal brand in many graphic design practices.

Q: Your practice seems to float over a variety of different graphic design practices, from bilingual typography (Arabic & English), 3D, branding, data viz, to collage. Where do you see your practice sits within these practices?

☞
As a Creative Head, it helps to have a hand dipped in multiple design practices. I have always wanted to experiment with different digital art forms which I think ultimately lead me to where I am now. Referencing and being exposed to different approaches to art and design is in my opinion one of the best tool sets a graphic designer could have, so I am always on the lookout for an amazing project and ask myself “how can I do something like this with my own skill set?”

That pushes me to experiment more and get out of my comfort zone and just try new things, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail but the process is always rewarding. Moreover, the accumulation of experiences allow me to guide the people I work with to achieve the best work they can within the limitations they are facing. In many ways I’ve been there, done that more times than I care to remember so I pass on that knowledge and help them in that way.

Q: If you had to write a definition of Graphic Design for academic purposes, what would that be? And would you have a different definition of Arabic Graphic design? If yes, what would it be and in what ways is it different?

☞
Oh boy, well for me it would go something like:

“Graphic design is the utilization of assorted visual elements to first and foremost: solve a problem.” My definition for Arabic Graphic design would be more or less the same but with the added objective of projecting an authentic Arabic Identity in the design approach.

Arab designers throughout history have experimented with both structured and non-conventional (even chaotic) approaches to the practice, so it’s always good to have that shown when the need be.

Q: Can you take us through your design process? Choose your favorite project and please walk us through its process from start to finish, challenges, and learnings?
(Please scan as many things related to this process as possible as well as the final outcome of the project you will choose to talk about)

☞
On the surface, my process is very basic and watching me work is kind of worrisome because a lot of the process actually happens inside my head, so if I’m just chillin, watching youtube or gaming a lot of the time, I am also working. I begin normally by researching, which is basically just going to different websites for inspiration, be it content aggregated websites or studios specialized in whatever it is I’m supposed to be creating. Then comes the execution phase, I don’t know how to sketch to save my life, so I just get into the meat of things so to speak. I fire up the software and see what comes up based on the inputs from the brief and the objectives I set out for the projects (the latter is optional in some cases, sometimes it works backwards).

When I’m settled on something I then normally leave it to simmer in my mind and come and have a later look at it, see if it can be pushed more, benchmark it against references and so on. I usually try to innovate with what i’m working with, sure there are best practices and they are necessary but I find it nice to add your own touch on things after understanding said best practices.

Now onto one of my favorite projects: In late 2020, I was approached by Laila Badawi to completely rebrand her Architecture studio: Grids 13. I always wanted to work on something architecture related so naturally the opportunity was too good to pass up.

We first had a workshop to determine what direction the brand needed to go, the workshop consisted of me putting a moodboard together along with design findings to establish a solid ground work.

So the first thing that struck me the most with the brand name is the use of number 13, which generally is a bad omen. Laila’s rationale was that the studio wanted to embrace what people are generally uncomfortable about, and it also had a personal connection to her as she won her first award in 2013.

With that in mind, it became very clear to me that 13 should be the focus of the brand mark. So I began exploring concepts. I have always been fascinated by the visual construction of Roman numerals, the use of very minimalist glyphs like I, X, C, L and M and the construction of the numerical value based on their order was a great numbering system at the time. Not to mention the civilization’s contribution to architecture and engineering. So I set out to explore the idea of having the Roman numeral “XIII” as a building block for the concept.

The explorations were…interesting, but they were not there just yet, the compositions felt a bit too panoramic in ratio like the first, some sketches like the second and the XIII didn’t look like it even belonged with the brand mark. Remember what I said earlier about the number 13 being very much integrated with the essence of the studio? That wasn’t achieved here. The “XIII” didn’t feel like a main part of the beandmark, so it was discarded and I kept exploring till I thought “wait a minute…”

By replacing the “I” in “Grids” with a vertically stacked 13, it achieved the objective I was set out to do with the brief. It was at that moment that I went “yep…that’s the one i’m selling”.

So now with the brand mark locked down, I wasn’t really ready to abandon the “XIII” from earlier, so I thought of building the design system around that.

The explorations were coming along nicely but I started having the concern that they might be too “out there” or impractical in different design applications. So the system was toned down a little bit so the XIII would be used as an indicator to the main highlight areas of the layout.

The system worked well, and it was scaleable to different forms and it functioned very nicely in both print and digital spaces. Obviously the system wasn’t going to have legs without the type and color palette. Which are shown below:

For the colors, they were split into 3 categories: a main color palette, which was more or less the old identity’s color palette and I worked on a nature and material based secondary color palette. The accent palette was made to show Laila’s love for bold, outspoken colors. A system was then created where the secondary palette serves as the building block, and it can be combined with either the main palette or accent palette depending on the designer’s choice at the time.

So all in all, the project turned out great. Definitely one of the most fun I have had on a branding project. It does help to have clients that are cooperative and trusting of what you do. The communication process between Laila and myself has always been fruitful and logical and that is some of the best qualities you could ask for in a client.

Q: Since you experiment a lot with different mediums and tools, what do you think is the importance of experimentation for designers?

☞
It’s literally the most beneficial thing they could possibly do to hone their thinking and execution process. Specialization is important and it has its merits but even then, doing different things helps in so many ways beginning with breaking the monotony of repetition, it gives you new insights and benchmarks that make you better at self reflection and assessing yourself within the overall art space and when done right, you can combine all the learnings you get from experimentation both good and bad and create something truly unique to you.

Q: Who are your favorite Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one now?

☞
Old:
So here’s the thing, I never honestly kept up with what would be considered “old” Egyptian designers. I was never really interested in the historic aspect of Egyptian design culture, even though I went through a lot of examples of Islamic-Arabic design culture while working on developing my own calligraphy style.

I think it’s because with all the visual noise I have been exposed to for basically my entire life in the everyday design culture, I fell into the trap of not thinking of looking back at the history of said culture. It is something I regret and I plan on reading up on those more and being exposed to their works.

New:

Ahmed Hammoud^[1]Ahmed Hammoud, Here
Nora Aly^[2]Nora Aly, Here
Mohamed Samir^[3]Mohamed Samir, Here
Islam Abou El Enein^[4]Islam Abou El Enein, Here
Ibrahim Hamdi^[5]Ibrahim Hamdi, Here
Ramy Kamel Omar^[6]Ramy Kamel Omar, Here
Muhammad Mustafa (AKA Picasso, the illustration Grand Master Supreme)^[7]Muhammad Mustafa, Here
A unicorn by the name of Nardine Shenouda.^[8]Nardine Shenouda, Here

Q: Who are your favorite non-Egyptian designers/artists? One old and one now?

☞
Old:

David Carson^[9]David Carson, Here
Neville Brody^[10]Neville Brody, Here
Massimo Vignelli^[11]Vignelli Center, Here
Paul Rand^[12]Paul Rand, Here

New:

Mothanna Hussein^[13]Mothanna Hussein, Here
Quim Marin^[14]Quim Marin, Here
Adhemas Batista^[15]Adhemas Batista, Here
Ryan Atkinson^[16]Ryan Atkinson, Here
Grzegorz Domaradzki (Gabz)^[17]Grzegorz Domaradzki, Here
Olly Moss^[18]Olly Moss, Here
Yoji Shinkawa^[19]Yoji Shinkawa, Here

Q: How do you get inspiration for your projects?

☞
You got your usual suspects: Behance, Pinterest, Instagram…etc. Those I basically look at every single day, can be for hours to end so there is a constant inspiration stream. When it comes to tackling a certain brief I just visit the websites of studios I hold in high regard specializing in whatever scope of work I’m currently working on and cross reference projects from there with the aforementioned “big 3” and down goes the rabbit hole.

Q: Describe what does your desk mean to you?

☞
I spend a lot of time on my desk, not just for work but for leisure as well. I have been gaming ever since I was 6, so my relationship with the desk goes way back. As cliche as that may sound but it is my own sanctuary most of the time and it’s where I prefer to retreat when overwhelmed or in need of focus. A Lot of memories there too, whether kicking ass (or getting my ass kicked) at a multiplayer match (shoutout to my Battlefield 3 and Titanfall 2 homies) or just you know…learning about a new cool technique or coming up with a new piece or project.

Q: When you are creatively blocked what are some of the ways you overcome this block?

☞
I honestly let the creative block be. If I’m blocked it’s probably because I have maybe thought about something too much and I have lost sight of what actually needs achieving vs. what I think I should achieve. I have never really defined myself by what I do, I realize that I am human at the end of the day and there are bad days (or weeks, months). So the important thing would be to not obsess about it too much, focus on my own well being and keep looking and referencing things for the sake of doing so, the ideas will eventually come. They always do.

Q: You have a specific experience with Data Visualization, how did you get interested in that and what are your thoughts generally on Data Visualization in Egypt?

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All credit goes to Pixonal’s founder Mohamed Said. He approached me back in late 2016 for a job offer at his studio that was focused mainly on data visualization. I didn’t really know what it was about back in the day, but through his guidance and the opportunities offered, such as working with data viz gurus like the Netherlands-based Clever Franke, I gained so much insight into the power of storytelling data visualization has and the amazing possibilities of creating super complex designs from even more complex data sets and making them a positive experience to go through. Currently, the understanding of what data visualization is in the Egyptian space is next to non-existent. Data needs to be visualized at internal meetings in most organizations and not as a communication tool with the public, so the need isn’t really there at the moment but here’s hoping it catches on.

Q: Where do you see yourself going in the future, or where would you like to be/do?

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So this is more gaming related, but two of my favorite game designers: Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear) and Hidetaka Miyazaki (Dark Souls) have this thing where they are like…so damn good at what they do they just do it. That’s it, and people generally love what they do. That level of mastery, of creative freedom and wisdom to do whatever you want and knowing that it will be loved and appreciated by people in that space is what I aspire to be and do the most.

Q: What are 3 pieces of advice you can give to a young designer embarking on a journey similar to yours?

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1. You are not what you are doing: be kind to yourself and don’t romanticize the practice or craft.
2. You’re in this for the long haul: things take time, failure is part of the process and it has no quota, the more you fail the more you learn.
3. Get over yourself: There are always artists better or more suited for the job than you are, there will always be a better solution than the one you provided. Keep improving yourself, don’t think you’ve “made it” cause that concept doesn’t exist; there is always more and it ultimately is about the journey.

The Desk is an in-depth interview series with Arab Designers and Makers taking their desks as a focal point to view their practice. “The Desk’s” name is borrowed from Mark Gardner’s film with the same name. Mark’s short documentary sought to explore the relationship between a worker and their desk and how that reflects their personality. Design Repository is curious to explore the same while adding an intention of scribing these interviews in the Now and therefore attempts to record a moment in time for future generations so that they can find something about now when they look back. The interviews will run around the year, with a new designer/maker and a new desk each month. We are honored to start the series with a dedicated and vigorous Egyptian designer and illustrator: Dara Hassanein, founder of RebelCairo.

Q: Please introduce yourself (Name, age, nationality, and title) and what do you do?

I mostly do Design and Creative Direction but I’m also very involved in all aspects of the brand: production, connecting with clients, social media content and presence, website maintenance and handling orders.

Q: When did you start RebelCairo, why did you choose this name, and what made you start?

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At university (GUC), I was into illustration, and I was curious about how it looked in different mediums, but for some reason, I specifically gravitated towards fabric and took every chance to explore it further; I even tried to incorporate it in my editorial design course. Then after university, I forgot about it. My interest would be reignited from time to time through projects I was involved with. The idea started to slowly sprout when I was working at Alchemy design studio as a graphic designer and a professional synchronized swimmer in parallel.

Each time I came close to starting the brand, I got busy with life and forgot about it, but it constantly came up again. I took this as a sign to try it out. I sat down with my mother and spoke to her about it. She didn’t know where this would take me, but she joined me anyway. We started contacting workshops, talking to factories, looking for raw materials as part of the initial research. Since then, it has been my mother and I and a few amazing workshops.

After extensive research to understand this area, I decided to launch in April 2019. As for the name, it came naturally to me because it was how I felt at the time. I wanted to change and challenge so many things around me, and I had no expectations of the brand growing, so I just went with it. I often get asked about the brand name as it gives people a particular impression. I remember connecting with someone through DMS and decided to meet up. The first thing she said was, “I expected to meet a rocker girl with that name,” which I found funny because I believe the adjective applies to so many of us, so there shouldn’t be a specific “aesthetic” attached to it. For me, the idea of being a rebel is more of a conceptual mindset.

Often people think it’s a bigger team. Rana Samir, a great visual artist, joined the family recently, so we’re now three with a lot of help from friends.

Q: What would you say is the ethos of Rebel Cairo?

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Simply, making clothes that people would like to wear and make them feel good. That is not an easy feat if we try to align this ethos with our ideas of ethical fashion practice, which we are constantly working towards achieving.

Q: Can you take us through your design process? Choose your favorite project and please walk us through its process from start to finish, challenges, and learnings?

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Briefly in steps: idea, research, sketch, digital trials, printing samples, pattern-making (the cut and form of the garment), refining, finishing, final product, but it’s not exactly in the same order each time. I wouldn’t say favorite, but it is one of the most challenging for sure, which I enjoyed working on for several reasons. It’s the brand’s latest collaboration with Sarrah Abdel Rahman. We collaborated on the print of the dress she wore for the opening night of the Gouna Film Festival. We first started with the idea of creating a dress with a custom print that would later be disassembled and recycled into something people could buy. The overarching theme of the print was supposed to be sustainability in fashion.

I started working on the print immediately and often sent Sarrah to get her feedback. One month in, she asked me to pause and took a few days to re-think the whole concept and came back with a completely different manifesto for the print that was simultaneously emotionally charged and very personal to her.

Sarrah wanted to infuse the dress with multiple ideas, on the one hand maintaining the initial concept of sustainable fashion and on the other utilizing her own fashion choice encapsulated in the dress as a vehicle for her own fierce personal expression and belief system.

It was overwhelming to digest. One challenge was figuring out how I would translate that on a dress. How do I say all that abstractly? What to take? What to leave? What’s appropriate for the event, and should I even consider that? What’s not?

The idea of designing a dress for Sarrah to make her feel empowered as a woman was not that easy to do, and I had to draw inspiration from my own strength to understand how to empower Sarrah. I remember my first few trials were really subtle, and she would tell me, “Dara, I feel it’s apologetic. I want it to be unapologetic, loud, bold.”

It took some time for me to reach that. The project had positive and negative feedback for several reasons that are difficult to get into in detail here. However, the idea of having your work go viral and observing people’s reactions to it teaches you a lot. I learned the subtle differences between working for a client and executing your very own ideas. As well as how to navigate criticism and articulate my thoughts and ideas better, it gave me a great insight into how I want to present my work in the future. All of which are positive takeaways from the project. One of the most significant takeaways of the project was the relationship-building process that I personally and the brand have built with Sarrah. It was enriching on a personal and professional level.

If I had to choose a favorite, it would be the collection I’m currently working on (I can’t share yet), but I believe it’s my best work to come. Another project I enjoyed working on was Garidat RebelCairo, a brand journal we published in 2020 to celebrate our curiosity for illustrations that include stories, collaborations, impromptu sketches, and never-seen-before photographs that have, and continue to fuel the vision of our brand. The journal made me look back at key moments for the brand, which left me feeling grateful for the people I met and worked with along the way. I also enjoyed it because I love Editorial design and rarely do it now.

We also just launched our first knitwear collection in December, which I’m thrilled with because it’s an expansion to our product line, and it was fun to see how our prints would translate on this kind of fabric.

Q: Who are your favorite Arab designers/artists?

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They change constantly and they’re so many but currently:

1. Ramses Wissa Wassef
2. Hany Rashed
3. Maison Artc in Fashion (from Morocco)
4. Essam Marouf

Q: Who are your favorite non-Arab designers/artists?

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I don’t have favorites. But if I had to choose at the top of my head:

1. Dali
2. Daniel Roseberry – Schiaparelli
3. Dries Van Noten

Q: How do you get inspiration for your projects?

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Colors, arts, books, nature, history, spotting interesting details in people’s outfits, wanting to wear something and not finding it, trend forecasts, and different eras in fashion. I also follow many accounts that share work that inspires me: design, furniture, photography, etc.

Q: Describe what does your desk mean to you?

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It has a calming effect on me and gives me a sense of order and structure when I need it. Though I’m not too attached to it, I work anywhere when I need to.

Q: When you are creatively blocked what are some of the ways you overcome this block?

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I do not have one formula that works each time, but I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT make your work your whole day/life. You need to engage in other activities that are entirely different from your field to come up with new ideas. If I do not have the luxury to take a break and recharge, I try these:

• I change my working space (work from a different place)
• I share my work with artists/designers I know and trust. Their input always helps me when I feel stuck with a design/project and don’t know how to push it further.
• I read.
• I change my medium
• I limit my time on social media. I believe some of my creative blocks were a result of that. It makes my brain lazier.

Q: How do you see the role of photography within your practice as a designer?

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To my brand, it’s just as important and sometimes, an extension to the concept and story of each collection. Other times, I just want the clothes to shine alone, no crazy location, no props, nothing. Even then, which images I choose and how I show the pieces is very important. I see it as another tool to reinforce the brand’s personality and collection theme, and be different from others in the field. And it proved to be right from how people reacted to it. I get many positive comments about the brand’s content on Instagram when I meet people in real life. Recently, we’ve been focusing on showing our followers the BTS: production, printing etc. People are always curious to know about that and it’s where all the serious work happens anyway.

Q: Where do you see Rebel Cairo going in the future?

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My idea of where I see us going next is evolving constantly. However, a few constant goals would be: maturing and becoming stronger in design, execution, quality, knowledge and experience. I see our team getting bigger and more diverse as well as initiating projects that support stories we care about as a brand. I also see us expanding geographically which I’m currently working on.

Q: What are 3 pieces of advice you can give to a young designer embarking on a journey similar to yours?

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1. Do it for the right reasons
2. Be patient when it comes to results
3. Accept imperfection but work as if you’re reaching for it

Checkout more of RebelCairo Projects Here
Shop at RebelCairo Here

Photography of Dara Hassanein is shot by Aly Soliman