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Publisher's Synopsis

Although Arabic is the third-most widely used script in the world, there is a lack of sound typographic literature. This publication is a multi-disciplinary reference work that combines the latest academic research with applied typography. The focus on elements that pertain specifically to Arabic typography prevents overlapping with the comprehensive literature on Latin script typography, making the book relevant and accessible to the widest possible audience.

The first part provides an in-depth synthesis on the typographic history and development of the Arabic script, bringing together a cohort of young scholars who are breaking new grounds in pursuing research excellence. In the more extensive second part, these historical foundations are complemented by a concise guide to Arabic typography through the lens of a design practitioner. Inspired by Jost Hochuli's standard work "Detail in Typography", the author vividly addresses all relevant micro-typographic parameters.

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Although Arabic is the third-most widely used script in the world, there is a lack of sound typographic literature. This multi-disciplinary reference work combi

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“Drawing for a New Public: The Middle East 9th Art and the Emergence of a Transnational Graphic Movement”, en Binita Mehta y Pia Mukherji “Postcolonial Comics: Texts, Events and Identities”. Routledge: London.

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During the 33-days war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Lebanese artist Mazen Kerbaj used to post daily on his blog a series of illustrations about the ongoing war in Lebanon. More recently, during the Egyptian uprising in 2011, Magdy El-Shafee

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Imagine the typewriter machine has just been invented, you have never seen something like this before, what would you call it?

Would you decide based on its stocky build or the noise it makes, or just what it does? Type. I do not know personally, what I would call it, nor what I would do when I discover the rest of the world had been privy to its brilliance decades before its trickle down to the less recognised side of the globe. Our side.

Well they ended up calling it the “door of question and suggestion”, which to be honest, i did like the sound of more than “typewriter”.  it felt right to romanticize such a politically charged tool, as they tend to do in the east, for despite what drove it to us, we would be the ones who would finally have a pathway to archiving and communicaton, it was better late than never, right?

Right. That was a lie, I guess the promise of greatness does not surpass the human need for safety, stability, and security within governments. We were so happy to finally receive the tools, going all but insane the first few years with movie scripts and literature and philosophical theories finally being put down on paper and made easily accessible to the wider public; but it would be this very public that we would prioritize over our own legacies, as it is very hard to hold onto a piece of metal that can write perfect letters when a child is begging you for food that you know you can get if you only exchanged it.

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Be with the Revolution

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany
thursday 31 march 2022 - sunday 31 march 2024

Ends in 169 days 12h

The exhibition "Be with the Revolution" at MK&G sheds light on the role played by street art and graphic design in the protests that have taken place in the Arab world since 2011.

Central themes are the dissemination of protest images in urban and digital spaces, feminism and sexual violence, the rediscovery of Arabic script as a political language, and the commemoration of the victims of the protests. "Be with the Revolution" was organised in close cooperation with designers who participated in the protests on site or from exile. How does an image become a protest, and a protest an image? How do street artists and graphic designers view their own role in the protests and the impact of their works? The exhibition explores these questions by interweaving images and commentary. The works spotlight various protest arenas ranging from Tunisia, Egypt and Syria since 2011 to Iraq and Lebanon in 2019.

Artists: Ammar Abo Bakr, Bahia Shehab, Ganzeer, Hanadi Chawaf, Mark Nickolas, Marwan Shahin, Mohamed Gaber, Nadia Khiari, Sajad Mustafa Zuabil, Siwar Kraytem, Sulafa Hijazy, Taqi Spateen, Zoo Project

Be with the Revolution, #StreetArt and #GraphicDesign in the Arab Protests since 2011 #Exhibition #Hamburg @mkghamburg

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Street Art and Graphic Design in the Arab Protests since 2011, Be with the Revolution, Graphic design, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany

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The exhibition Be with the Revolution at MK&G sheds light on the role played by street art and graphic design in the protests that have taken place in the Arab world since 2011.

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As protests have erupted across the globe over the last ten years, so has the need for graphic designers to help craft a new visual language for activists, occupiers and campaigners.

This talk will discuss the key visual forms that have been adopted by thousands of people to represent solidarity and communicate discontent - from banners, t-shirts and hats to internet memes and videos.

While technology has given people the tools to access, share and mass produce protest material, handcrafted material has also flourished, empowering individuals, inspiring the masses.

This event is part of a series of talks delivered in partnership with The Guardian.

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Join a panel of designers, artists and activists for a talk on the visual languages of protest.

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Subjects
Middle East Studies, Art and Visual Culture > Art Criticism and Theory, Art History

Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents offers an unprecedented resource for the study of modernism: a compendium of critical art writings by twentieth-century Arab intellectuals and artists. The selection of texts-many of which appear here for the first time in English-includes manifestos, essays, transcripts of roundtable discussions, diary entries, exhibition guest-book comments, letters, and more. Traversing empires and nation-states, diasporas and speculative cultural and political federations, these documents bring light to the formation of a global modernism, through debates on originality, public space, spiritualism and art, postcolonial exhibition politics, and Arab nationalism, among many other topics. The collection is framed chronologically, and includes contextualizing commentaries to assist readers in navigating its broad geographic and historical scope. Interspersed throughout the volume are sixteen contemporary essays: writings by scholars on key terms and events as well as personal reflections by modern artists who were themselves active in the histories under consideration. A newly commissioned essay by historian and Arab-studies scholar Ussama Makdisi provides a historical overview of the region's intertwined political and cultural developments during the twentieth century. Modern Art in the Arab World is an essential addition to the investigation of modernism and its global manifestations.

Publication of the Museum of Modern Art
Distributed by Duke University Press

"The translation and publication of these documents is particularly important for scholars. A problem with studying 20th-century Arab art has been lack of access to primary materials. Many of them are still in the hands of artists or their families, and have not been well-catalogued nor digitised - or are in Arabic and inaccessible to an English-dominated field. As study of Arab modernisms grows, projects like this allow artists' voices to be heard, rather than others speaking for them." - Melissa Gronlund, The National

"This is a book to relish and dig into time and time again. Each article takes on a different meaning on further reading. . . . This book inspires a love for Arabic art history and should encourage further historical and contextual illustration that will illustrate the subject and render it more accessible." - Omar Kholeif, Critical Inquiry

"The constant awareness of both the possibilities and difficulties of speaking or writing about art and its potentially revolutionary mission makes this fascinating anthology a worthwhile contribution to the global conversation about art." - Raphael Cormack, Apollo

"A unique reference for students of modern Arab art and a fascinating window into cultural debates in the region." - Ursula Lindsey, Al Fanar Media

"The compelling format of Modern Art in the Arab World allows us to understand not only the various genres and histories, but also the multiple roles Arab artists often occupy in the context of the world at large. . . . I found myself wanting to converse with the texts, because they feel alive, contextualized, yet un-homogenized. The advancement of the arts, aligned to faceted histories of war and peace, conquests, manifestos, economic development, and technological advances, makes reading this book feel unburdened by issues of who did what first. Like a map, this work allows you to connect points of inception and departure, to gather parallel and random threads that reveal new intersections." - Doris Bittar, Al Jadid

"An unprecedented anthology of source material on modern art in the Arab world. . . . Modern Art in The Arab World provides not only a substantial archive, but also a liminal space of textual fluidity to revisit modernity outside of its North Atlantic core." - Golnar Yarmohammad Touski, Contemporaneity

"This is a unique collection of writings of extraordinary interest. The richness and variety of the documents allow you to listen in, across more than a century, to the debates among artists and critics about the nature, value, and political direction of art. Their manifestos, reflections, essays, dialogues, and letters capture a vibrant modernism as it was forged, elaborated, and contested." - Timothy Mitchell, William B. Ransford Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University

"This volume on Arab art is an important addition to MoMA's remarkable Primary Documents series. It demonstrates how cumulative research raises the stakes and positions the colonial modern as a determinant within twentieth-century art, and how modernity is co-produced and thus embedded with contradictions that historicize it the more. With an excellent introduction by the editors, art writing from across Arab cultures is chronicled and debated in ways that change interpretive modalities: the pan-Arab imaginary-treated as trope, ideology, material practice-becomes, for instance, Arab meta-discourse on internationalism. This volume will precipitate discourse in contexts beyond the West and, like its predecessors in the series, change parameters within the discipline of art history." - Geeta Kapur, critic, curator, and author of When Was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India

Related links

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Subjects Middle East Studies, Art and Visual Culture > Art Criticism and Theory, Art History Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents offers an unprecedented resource for the study of modernism: a compendium of critical art writings by twentieth-century Arab intellectuals and artists.

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Egyptian Satirical Graphics on Social Media after the Arab Spring - White Rose Research Online

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This paper investigates Egyptian digital forms of satirical graphics mostly published on Social Media by cartoonists and amateurs after the Arab Spring. These include: webcomics memes, and Graphic Interchange Format (GIF). The paper will focus on two Facebook pages as a case study: Asa7be Sarcasm So…

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Ezzedine Kalak (1936-1978)

Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question

Biography | Ezzedine Kalak who as the PLO representative in Paris, had opened its Liaison and Media Bureau in 1975 with the agreement of the French government, was assassinated on 3 August 1978. Under his leadership, the bureau had quickly become a beehive constantly buzzing with work in support of the Palestinian cause.

Learn more about Ezzedine Kalak by reading his biography in The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question.

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From our Digital Projects | Biography | Ezzedine Kalak who as the PLO representative in Paris, had opened its Liaison and Media Bureau in 1975 with the agreement of the French government, was assassinated on 3 August 1978. Under his leadership, the bureau had quickly become a beehive constantly buzzing with work in support of the Palestinian cause.

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Books/Literary Texts/Articles



Signs for Peace, An Impossible Visual Encyclopedia edited by Design2context, Ruedi Baur & Vera Baur Kockot



The Face of Human Rights edited by Lars Müller, Walter Kälin, Judith Wyttenbach



Don’t Brand my Public Space! On the Symbolic Poverty of the Representational Systems of Territorial Collectivities edited by Ruedi Baur, Sébastien Thiéry, Civic City, Head Genève, EnsadLab



Arabic Type Design for Beginners, An Illustrated Guidebook edited by Huda Smitshuijzen-AbiFarès, Khajag Apelian, Lara Assouad-Khoury, Majid Al-Yousef, Yara Khoury-Nammour, Kristyan Sarkis, Wissam Shawkat, and Pascal Zoghbi



Arabic Typography by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès



L’affiche palestinienne - Collection d’Ezzedine Kalak by Yasser Arafat



Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents by MoMA



Linha do Tempo do Design Gráfico No Brasil by Chico Homem de Melo & Elaine Ramos



Thami Mnyele + Medu, Art Ensemble Retrospective edited by Clive Kellner and Sergio-Albio Gonzalez



L’art du livre arabe, du manuscrit au livre d’artist by Annie Vernay-Nouri,Marie-Geneviève Guesdon



The Palestinian Poster: Popularizing National Landmarks and Symbols



Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War by Zeina Maasri



Diwan of Arabic Calligraphy in Egypt during the Muhammed Ali Dynasty

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The Art Newspaper - International art news and events

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When Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit and vegetable vendor, set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, he triggered a period of unrest that would eventually unseat the country's president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Bouazizi's self-immolation in front of a government building in the town of Sidi Bouzid not only led to the downfall of the Tunisian leader, but also set off protests that engulfed much of the Middle East as people rose up against oppressive regimes. These uprisings-across Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain-formed part of the revolutionary pro-democracy movement known as the Arab Spring. Ten years on, we ask artists, writers and cultural leaders from the Middle East, or who specialise in the region, about the impact of the Arab Spring; its legacy for arts and culture; and, crucially, what the future looks like for its artists and institutions.

Manal Al Dowayan
Saudi Arabian artist
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

I had moved to Cairo for an artist residency at the Town House Gallery in September-December 2011. I was very excited to arrive in Egypt during the political revolution (I don't use the term Arab Spring) of the country. I had watched this movement on TV, I remember my mother praying for my safety, there was a lot of fear of the unknown as I left Saudi Arabia. Once I was on the ground and living in Cairo, a city that had no president or official structure, I felt very safe and cared for by Egyptians. Actually the city was so densely populated that the revolution was happening in one part of the city and in the other part there was a football game in a packed stadium. Life continues always in Cairo!

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

I did not make any art during the political uprising in Egypt. Instead I ran a workshop with 70 emerging artists where I made the participants start a work and then hand it over to the next person to work on, respecting the image that exists and adding to it as they see fit. I guess I felt there were small divisions in society that I was seeing that compelled me to address this issue. I was often invited into the homes of Egyptians for lunches and dinners and I always witnessed that the families were divided between those who were pro-Hosni Mubarak and those who were against him; the debates were heated and emotional. That might have been the trigger for me.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

I think the power of the very youthful population of the whole of the Arab world has become very apparent and recognised as an energy that needs care and a vision. Some countries have embraced this new energy and some have ignored it.

Hossein Amirsadeghi
Writer and editor; co-author of Art & Patronage: The Middle East, Transglobe Publishing
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

What has stayed with me all this time more than anything was the extraordinary eruption of hope amongst all classes, especially the young, for the realm of the possible set against ingrained limitations.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

Nine years ago almost to the week, I predicted at the A&P Summit in London that despite all the hoopla and celebrations around the Arab Spring, the fundamental groundwork for long-term pluralism was beyond the grasp of Arab societies incapable of delivering the very basic needs of its citizens, let alone meeting the aspirations of community political consensus, and the needs of the demographic youth bulge. The groundwork for such is education, economic independence and social cohesion marked by progress.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

The future looks bleak, unrepentant, periodically explosive and intrinsically unreformable as things stand... a state of stasis. The only hope for artists in the region iswhere it serves the regime, for propaganda and projection of a liberal, creative stance, which is strictly controlled. Real art demands critical visual discourse. Criticism is frowned upon, dissent crushed, religion taboo, society off limits-where does one go except to toe the guardrails?

Amani Hassan
Acting executive director and programme director of the Arab British Centre, a cultural organisation that works to further understanding of the Arab world in the UK
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

A few art works stand out but in particular The Lost Springs by Moroccan artist Mounir Fatmi, which was an installation of flags representing the 22 states of the Arab League, with those going through revolutionary protests hanging on brooms.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

The Arab Spring went beyond the political revolution, it paved the way for new cultural initiatives across the Arab world, many of them completely detached from government. The legacy of the Arab Spring is yet to be known as it is very much alive today in many parts of the Arab world. Although it positively encouraged politically loaded forms of artistic expression focused on anti-establishment and anti-authoritarianism narratives, censorship is still a problem in many countries.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

Seeing how much has happened in the last ten years, one can only hope that the burgeoning arts and culture scene will continue to grow. There is an increasing interest from governments to support local artists which is very encouraging. Of course there will be major disparities between countries-the Gulf has built more museums than most other regions in the world over the last ten years,while the civil war in Syria has decimated funding for the arts.

Othman Lazraq
Director of Fondation Alliances, a non-profit organisation dedicated to cultural development in Morocco, and president of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Marrakech
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

Beyond astonishment and tension, I remember the profusion of creativity generated by these political events, in proportions never seen before in these countries, as well as the highlighting of these artistic scenes that have been little shown in the West before. One thing that struck me was the breakthrough of Arab artists at the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale in November 2011, which had never hosted so many. The exhibition The Future of a Promise gathered 22 of them, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

The Arab Spring gave artists in these regions a new sense of freedom that led to a liberation of creativity and a more assertive, daring artistic expression. It was also the emergence of a whole new scene that was politically engaged. But above all, it increased the global interest for artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which are now quite popular and becoming more mainstream. On a negative note, many cultural initiatives in the region were shut down and some artists fled their countries.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

These events created solid bridges between the art scenes of MENA countries, allowing synergies and dialogues that we are committed to growing. Social media networks are also definitely a key asset; they break borders and facilitate discoveries, exchanges and links. As for us, we are lucky in Morocco because arts and culture have always been a priority.

Sascha Crasnow
Lecturer in Islamic Arts, University of Michigan
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

My lasting art-related memory is Bahia Shehab's stencils of the blue bra, in reference to sitt al-banat [the best of all girls] the name given to the woman who was dragged by army soldiers through the streets by her abaya exposing her torso and blue bra.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

I'm not sure that I have a great answer for this one. For many the most memorable thing about the Arab Spring is its use of social media-so I think perhaps one of the legacies is how art (in the case of the Arab Spring mostly graffiti and street art) can continue to circulate and have an impact beyond its time in the physical space it originally occupies. This is not something that was unknown before this, of course, but it was something to think about as part of how images disseminated internationally as the events unfolded. Murals and stencils and graffiti adorned virtual walls even after they had been whitewashed. But as they move through these various virtual spaces, it is interesting to think about how their meaning and impact may or may not change as they are removed from their original context and placed into new ones.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

I believe it is bright. Greater international attention in the past few decades on contemporary art, in particular, from the region and its diasporas has created more opportunities for artists and for audiences to gain exposure to their work, and for more investments in the arts, both locally and from abroad. This is not to say that all is rosy-there have been a number of incidents that have damaged the arts in the region over the past decade, from censorship and governmental shutdown of institutions (as with the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo); to continued civil violence (such as in Syria); to the devastation of contemporary arts institutions in Beirut because of the blast last year. However, none of this has stopped artists and arts institutions from continuing to make and show work and, in our current pandemic world, the move to virtual has at times allowed for greater international access to events, talks, conferences and workshops.

Nadine Abdel Ghaffar
Founder of Art D'Egypte, a company that aims to promote Egyptian art and heritage
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

A lasting art-related memory is the graffiti. People turned to the streets in order to express themselves, art became democratised and accessible; by the people and for the people.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

It showed us how resilient our community is and how we were all able to bounce back in such a short time. When people and nations are faced with adversity, the community often turns to art for expression and most importantly as a coping mechanism.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

The future is looking vibrant, and seemingly full of arts and culture. Every aspect of society is working hard to revive the soul of the community through the arts.

Ganzeer
Egyptian artist who rose to mainstream fame with his murals painted during the Cairo revolution
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

The movement of hundreds of thousands of bodies moving together. The eloquence and poignance of chants, with new ones being invented almost every day. Kiosks giving out free water to protestors, the humour scrawled on signs and posterboards, and the reclaiming of public space by people, art and music. Smouldering armoured vehicles and police officers shedding their uniforms and saying "we're sorry". The rattle of spraycans before being used on military tanks, scrawling "No Mubarak" before soldiers could take notice. Thousands of voices chanting "we won't go, he must go". Makeshift clinics set up by med students and doctors near the "front lines" of clashes, tending to the wounded, and young punks with motorcycles becoming de facto ambulances. Young boys writing their mothers phone numbers on their arms, before disappearing into thick clouds of US-made tear gas without knowing if they would ever come out. I remember hundreds of people sweeping streets and scrubbing statues the minute they thought the revolution was over, and a dozen different youth groups forming coalitions to discuss the path forward before it was all taken away.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

There is not much of legacy, unfortunately. I see the "art world" mostly interested in capitalising on the art of "the Arab Spring" as a historical capsule that can be commodified, packaged and sold to wealthy collectors and institutions interested in keeping a "piece of it", and not so much (or not enough, rather) of an inclination to push for more art influenced by the spirit of the Arab Spring, and that is art as an active agent of social change.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

The future looks like however we want it to look like. As long as we want it (and act it) bad enough. Isn't that how the future becomes present?

UPDATE (10 February)

Fatenn Mostafa
Author of Modern Art in Egypt: Identity and Independence 1850-1936 (I. B. Tauris / Bloomsbury)
What is your lasting memory of the Arab Spring?

The Arab Spring feels so far away. Yet, it seems like yesterday. It is difficult to describe in words the feelings of euphoria and the adrenaline that rushed through our veins. We believed that everything was possible. People of all strata, religion, gender, and ideology were truly united as one. We were strong and invincible. Or so we thought.

The two weeks between 25 January and 11 February were a mix of fantasy and tragedy. Fantasy because we witnessed the power of the people. The unforgettable chants and marches. The electrifying bonding. The explosive creativity across all art forms. A tragedy because I lost my father when his neighborhood watch was attacked by thugs on the night of 2 February. They all survived, except him. He was too old to run for his life. But his death didn't go in vain. He exemplifies the meaning of courage and determination.

What is the legacy of the Arab Spring for arts and culture?

Some say the Arab Spring is dead. They are wrong. It is alive, only in different ways. It is still alive in the hearts and souls of millions of Arabs. Remember that today's movers and shakers were in their teens back in 2011. They may not have grasped it then, but they sure do now-that their parents fought for their freedom. Also, the Arab Spring broke many taboos and put on the table discussions that were unfathomable pre-2011. Egyptians matured and are now aware of their rights. Their voice can make a difference. They also know that, if and when, then they can. All this is paving the way for a brighter future.

If we consider the current situation a zero-sum game around the region, history taught us that drastic changes need to go through different phases. Similar to the 1919 Revolution, the curve will go back up again. At the right time. So, what some may consider as negative aspects are, in fact, a progression towards the end goal. The end goal being democracy, freedom, bread, and social justice. It is a matter of time.

What does the future look like for arts and culture in the region?

The rather illiberal situation around the world is unsustainable in the long term. Many 'Western democracies' for example, have failed the test of time. Some were unable to stop the rise of right-wing ideologies; others failed to manage the global pandemic. In fact, Covid-19, just like the Arab Spring, has opened our eyes to many things. If we want to talk about the future of the Arab world, specifically, post-2011, I see a surge in the number of educated young men and women taking gradual control. We see a significant rise in successful (business and social) entrepreneurship; we know the influence social media has on governments-or how much they fear it-and public opinion.

However, one major pitfall or hurdle remains and it is the flawed education system for the masses. That is where our fight must be geared towards. Education does not mean teaching geography for example. All this is accessible at the tip of everyone's finger. But instead, opening the mind, teaching critical thinking, telling the truth about our histories, teaching arts the right way. Simply, enabling the mind to think freely.

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Street art, social media, visibility: how the Arab Spring has changed art and culture, a decade on

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We ask artists, writers and experts on Middle Eastern art about their memories of the revolutionary movements-and what they think the lasting legacies are

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Arab artists flourishing as uprisings embolden a generation

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Innovative and edgy work attracts attention around the world – and record prices at auction

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History of Neglected Arab Graphic Design

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Although Arab graphic design emerged in the early twentieth century, graphic design became recognized as a formal genre of visual art only in the twenty-first century in the region. This development occurred out of a need to influence and give expression to the far-reaching economic, social, and pol…

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I met Bahia Shehab about a year ago at a conference on contemporary Arab graphic design in New York. A professor and founder of the graphic design program at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Shehab briefly mentioned to me that she'd been working on a research project along with Haytham Nawar, the chair of the department of the arts at AUC. I had no idea of the scope of their project at the time, but was curious and excited considering the dearth of resources around Arab graphic design. Little did I know, the pair were about to publish the biggest resource to date.

A History of Arab Graphic Design , published by American University in Cairo Press, traces the key figures and events that were integral to the shaping of a field of graphic design in the Arab world. In 382 pages, it examines the work of over 80 key designers, covering the pre-1900s to the end of the 20th century, from Islamic art to the digital revolution and the arrival of the internet. It's a project almost four years in the making, and while it isn't definitive volume on Arab graphic design-there's still a lot of research to be done, as Shehab alludes to in our interview-it's an important and rich foundation on which to build, and an essential textbook for design educators all over the world. It's the history book I wish I had as a student, and the resource I've been missing as a practicing designer.

I got to catch up again with Shehab last week, this time virtually, and talk to her about the process of putting together this significant and long overdue publication.
I wanted to start by telling you that I devoured the whole thing in one sitting. It's such a friendly and easy read-it's like reading a story. How did this project come about?
Back in 2010, when I was preparing the curriculum for the graphic design program at the AUC, I wanted to develop a history of Arab graphic design course-while knowing that I couldn't teach it because we didn't have enough books and resources around the subject matter. But then when Haytham [Nawar] came on board as a faculty member, we applied for research grants and got one from AUC. The first time we were able to offer the course was in 2016, after we had assembled enough research material to allow us to actually develop and conduct the class. The book got published four years later.
Archiving in the Arab world is generally problematic: national visual archives are either missing or inaccessible, and we mainly rely on personal collections, which are scarce. How did that affect the process of making this book? You mention in your introduction that this book isn't a comprehensive study and that it's "just the tip of the iceberg." Can you expand on that?
In the Arab world, archiving is a hurdle for several reasons. On one hand, and to some extent, I think designers [assess] the validity of their work from their environment. So if you don't have institutions, schools, governmental entities, and corporate sectors who value and understand the importance of design, then the designers might feel that their work is not important-and thus don't archive it. On the other hand, you have designers who are fleeing wars, civil unrest, invasions, and colonialism. They are too busy and preoccupied to worry about the legacy of their own work.
In the very first sentence of your book, you write that we cannot separate graphic design from the cultural and socio-political context in which it was created. Can you tell us more about the importance of examining design through these lenses?
So when we are discussing archiving in the Arab world, we need to be aware of the historical narrative of that human condition. It's not because we don't want to, or because we're not good at it, but rather because we, as nations in a post-colonial Arab world, have different priorities. The reason why this book is long overdue is because we haven't had the luxury of reflective practitioners who have time and means to publish history books. Having the ability to publish this book is a privilege in itself-a privilege that generations before us did not have.

When we talk about the "Arab world," we're speaking of about 420 million people. We can't really represent the visual history of 420 million people simply in one book and call it comprehensive, that would be pretentious. We'll need an army of historians.

The Arab world is rich and complex; Arab countries have different histories. Also, a lot of Arab countries, like Yemen and Sudan, were inaccessible to us due to political conditions. I had to take a car and drive from Lebanon to Syria in the midst of the war just to be able to meet some of the designers and collect their work. It wasn't a smooth ride in that sense.

In our research, we also decided not to limit ourselves to the geography of the Arab world, and dedicated a whole chapter to the designers of the diaspora, or, as the architect and historian Nasser Rabbat calls them, "the hyphenated Arabs" [i.e. Arab-Americans, Arab-French]. Their contribution to the culture of the Arab world is invaluable because they have the luxury to reflect and the time to reinterpret and disseminate knowledge.
Indeed, some of the most interesting work featured in the book comes from political movements, notably the Palestinian resistance in the '60s.
People think that design is on the peripheries when it's actually in the center. It's in everything you do every day. The newspaper you hold, the screen you scroll through... It's an invisible craft, and, because of that nature, people don't contextualize it.

If you notice, we started the book with Islamic art. In Islamic art, you don't create for yourself, you create for the collective knowledge. We wanted to highlight a connection between that and design: it isn't about "us" as individuals, but "us" as a collective.

With new technologies, new policies, new social and political events unfolding, there's always a boost in visual production. This was an important point for us to get across: it's not the design itself that stands alone, but the design for and from communities.

"In Islamic art, you don't create for yourself, you create for the collective knowledge."

Euro-centric design has shaped our way of learning in Lebanon and in other Arab countries. Hopefully this book will make a difference.
Thank you for highlighting that example-it's again about the community. The designers of the Palestinian resistance, like Hilmi al-Touni , Mohieddine el Labbad , Kamal Boullata , i among many others, cared deeply and were connected to a greater cause, which was reflected in the quality of their work. They were working for the bigger picture.
What's next? Are you considering writing a second edition?
Another chapter that stood out to me was the one about the "calligraphers of the Golden Age" in the '50s. I was particularly interested in the vernacular and playful usage of calligraphy. It's so gratifying to see references from my childhood, like the opening credits of Layali el Hilmiya, an Egyptian soap opera I used to watch with my grandma-I never thought it would end up in a history book!

The artist behind that work, Khudair al-Bursa 'idi , is amazing, you have to meet him and visit his museum in Cairo. He drew most of the titles of the soap operas we all grew up watching. It is really fascinating how calligraphers in these setups were major stakeholders. They weren't just designing TV credits, they were shaping the look and feel of the product. Their creativity, intelligence, and wit were also at play, and you can see that in the work. We need a whole book about Arab title sequences-maybe you should write it! We're a bit nostalgic-maybe the younger generation won't relate to those details as much as we do-but then again, designers and calligraphers are the shapers of collective memories, and that's very important.

"Designers and calligraphers are the shapers of collective memories, and that's very important."

When I was a student at the American University of Beirut, we didn't even get a history of graphic design course, it wasn't offered at the time, and I always wondered who were our grandfathers and grandmothers as designers. In every craft, you have someone to look up to, and build from, and continue, and to me that question was nagging. Our book is now being adopted in curriculums all over the world, including Lebanon and the U.S. Similar history books from other cultures exist, and educators should invest in them. It's our responsibility as educators to present a new global narrative on what graphic design is, and not from a western-centric view.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I don't think we are ready for a second volume per se-[Haytham and I are] going into our own directions in terms of research. I'm really interested in publishing a book about women in design in the Arab world. I want to find them. I feel terrible that we featured very few and were unable to find the rest.

Through AUC's , [a research space around the development and dissemination of Arabic script], I've been lucky enough to start meeting some of these women. For example, I recently discovered the work of the absurdly talented Arlette Haddad , who is now in her 70s. I still need to look for more women type designers, illustrators, editorial designers. I'm sure we can come up with a beautiful book on Arab women designers. This is my priority right now.

I also feel like we have given everybody a building block to build on. I want to encourage people to start researching, writing papers, books... please publish and preserve knowledge.

I hope that, in the near future, another group of young designers would want to write a better book, a more comprehensive book. We have so much potential, so many stories to tell, and we just need to support each other in making sure they get told. This is only the beginning.

Correction: An earlier version of this article included phrasing that implied that Arabic is no longer spoken in Morocco and Algeria. We've removed the passage to avoid confusion.

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"Design For and From Communities"-Bahia Shehab on A History of Arab Graphic Design

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I met Bahia Shehab about a year ago at a conference on contemporary Arab graphic design in New York.

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The TypoArabic research project concluded on 3 June 2022, and I am delighted to announce that its principal output, the edited volume Arabic Typography: History and Practice, has now been... Read More >

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Arranged Marriage

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A pledge for politicizing Arabic type design, overturning exclusionary notions of ‘quality,’ and challenging classist gatekeeping to the profession.

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I am an Egyptian, Arab, Muslim woman. These adjectives combined form a "dangerous" element in a patriarchal society afflicted with Islamophobia and by the obliteration of the Arab identity. My existence in this world has forced me to defend myself for no particular reason. I then discovered that my work was the way to survive, to tell my story and the story of thousands of individuals who speak the same language and face the same struggle, as they are constantly expected to answer questions about who they are and where they come from.

I was born in a country that is not only known for its revolutionary stories, the stories of victories and collapse of civilizations, but also for its religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity. Growing up in such an environment made me believe in the power of storytelling. People can tell stories in many different ways. I personally chose Graphic Design for that. In fact, if we go back in time, we realize that the oldest way to tell a tale was by drawing, an activity that has since then evolved into various forms of art, including Graphic Design.

I believe that design can change the world. My life started when I started drawing...I always wanted to draw people, faces, eyes, emotions. However, this merely represented in my opinion an art without concrete function or purpose. My aim was to create a bigger impact. I wanted to touch people's hearts, to highlight a concept or to create change. I then realized that I could both be an artist and improve the lives of people around me through design and visual communication. My early passion for shapes, colors and styles made Graphic Design an ideal choice for me, as the unseen and applied work of a Graphic Designer can improve and shape all aspects of our lives.

As such, in my hometown of Cairo in particular, graffiti art helped overthrow several dictators. In the past few years, Egypt witnessed two revolutions, during which banners and graphics played an essential role. These revolutions proved that visual communication has become more powerful and more impactful than words.

Language is also one of the most important characteristics of any country or culture. Arabic is one of the oldest languages in the world, a language with a rich history. It is also a language that has remained prominent over time, despite the currently limited number of Arabic-speaking countries compared to past centuries, impacted by various challenges including decades of colonialism, political repression and globalization.

Even for non-Arabic speakers, Arabic letters have a certain mystical charm. Seeing them only would make you sense their power, without even understanding the words. Arabic is a fascinating language that is enriched by its words, derivatives, idioms and metaphors. It is a language that reflects the characteristics, cachet and perceptions of the Arab world, and mirrors its ideologies, heritage, thoughts and sense of freedom. Based on this, and with words being behind such a sophisticated language, it was only natural for them to make a smooth entrance into the world of Graphic Design. I believe that this form of design can indeed revive the Arabic language and preserve the Arab identity.

While preparing for my Master's degree, I sensed a certain longing for the Arabic language. I missed contemplating words and reflecting on their meaning. That feeling led me to one of the largest libraries in Italy, looking for Arabic books. When checking the Middle Eastern book section, I was struck by the realization that most, if not all, books revolved around fear, destruction, terrorism and ISIS. My heart sank, seeing that this was the image the world was seeing of us Arabs, even from a literary perspective.

I wondered what happened to the likes of Naguib Mahfouz and Gibran Khalil Gibran who are worldly renowned writers. What happened to acclaimed poets like Al-Mutanabbi and Nizar Qabbani? Were rich and diverse cultural products of a whole region in the world completely discarded? Were they prevented from creating a real impact on global media production and modern social discourse?

I felt responsible for my deep-rooted Arabic language, and started exploring ways to bring it back to its past glory and breathe life into it.

I wondered: could this be possible through education, arts, cinema, culture? Or all of those areas maybe? A more important question also lingered in my mind: Could Graphic Design change this stereotype? And what would my role be as a Graphic Designer in reviving and celebrating the Arabic language and culture?

From those thoughts, I came up with the project, entitled " Let's Play! "

I started thinking about ways to put an end to portrayals of Arabs as terrorists on this planet. I also reflected on means to preserve and promote the Arabic alphabet, and to share it with other communities and cultures. My eureka moment was when I discovered a bilingual solution for teaching Arabic, as effective communication, interaction and education naturally give way to more tolerant societies. After a long and deep reflection, I concluded that the best option would be to combine the concepts of innocence and Arab identity. As such, this identity is reflected in words, while innocence is embodied in children. Both elements made me think of one favorite toy for kids and adults: LEGO blocks.

Through this project, I aim to introduce learners and foreigners to the Arabic language, and most importantly, to help refugees integrate within their host communities, by creating a bi-directional bilingual learning and communication system. I chose to call this concept "Let's Play!"

The concept is simply a fun, different and uplifting way to learn modern standard Arabic, or literary Arabic, using Legos. The idea translated into a kit to create letters of the Arabic alphabet using LEGO blocks. The kit included a booklet, a smartphone application, cards that display all the letters of the Arabic alphabet in their four different forms, and a 400-word Arabic dictionary.

116 letters were designed in just one week!

In my workshop in Florence, I put the letters and the pieces together, then I took pictures of each and every letter. I color-coded them and chose the adequate color for the background, in addition to the font that I was going to use. My next plan would be to translate this booklet into as many languages as possible, so that teaching Arabic could become universally fun, easy and accessible.

Working on this project was a form of visual meditation, such as supplications or Sufi prayers for a better world. In fact, using Lego blocks to bring two languages together, was a metaphor to highlight the notion of togetherness and the need for us to build a common ground with diverse cultures, languages and ways of thinking. With this project, I have seen how boundaries can be brought down between people. With that in mind and regardless of our potentially negative perception of the world around us or the numerous distressing books centered around ISIS and other terrorist organizations, I will consistently aim at building a unified, colorful and vibrant world.

After the "Let's Play!" project, a different type of project was launched to build a brand for Egypt. The idea behind the Branding Egypt Initiative consisted in creating a new visual identity for 29 governorates in Egypt. In 2018, I presented the full project plan to the youth of Egypt as part of a youth conference attended by the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The President approved the initiative instantly, and it was adopted and rolled out after its initial pilot project entitled "Branding Luxor."

The project's purpose is to connect the dots between the past, the present and the future, and to promote tourism across Egypt. Luxor was the first city to be featured, which is home to one third of the world's ancient monuments.

Designs of the Branding Luxor project combined Hieroglyphic and modern writing scripts. They also relied on a vibrant and dynamic color palette, inspired by ancient Egyptian drawings that are still found in certain temples. Another great source of inspiration was in the elements of the city itself-- its fascinating history, architecture, nature, myths, and of course its unique geography (Luxor is situated on the East and West bank of the Nile river).

I always believed that art can reveal the beauty of any country and any culture, and that in any parts of the world, there are hidden treasures that are only waiting to be uncovered. That is how I realized that I could show the beauty of my homeland, Egypt, to the world through Graphic Design.

After almost two years of work, my dream finally came true with EcoEgypt. EcoEgypt is an electronic encyclopedia that introduces people in Egypt and across the world to a rich selection of Egyptian hidden gems, uncovering tribal heritage, monuments, natural landscapes and natural reserves in more than 30 locations, including Wadi El Gemal, abu Galum, Nabq, Ras Muhammad, Saint Katherine, Siwa, White Desert, Nubia, El Wahat El Bahariya, Lake Qarun, Wadi Degla, Wadi El Rayan, Taba, to only name a few.

As there could be no future without a documented past and history, Art has always played a key role in preserving and reviving our history. In that context, one of the important projects I launched was the rebranding, sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), of Egypt's National Library Manuscript Museum, which is considered one of the most unique cultural monuments in the country.

The library is one of the largest in the world, and houses approximately 60,000 manuscripts written in Arabic, Turkish and Persian over the course of several centuries, and on different subjects like religious studies, natural sciences, mathematics, poetry, linguistics, history and sociology. It also holds papyrus, maps, calligraphic albums and paintings, detached book covers, early printed books, periodicals, and more than 21,000 forms of coins and medals.

The project was about rebranding this fascinating place from A to Z, starting with the creation of a logo for the library and the drafting of a script to include all information on this monument. Work entailed also the creation of a comprehensive map, designing a guide for the Manuscript Museum, along with the creation of print designs for it.

Design plays a crucial role in highlighting the visual identity of any product, and has the power to unveil and re-introduce the culture and identity of any country.

Egyptians consider, in general, that the design of soft drink cans is entirely western. For that reason, we started an initiative to design the first local version of the soda can, called "7UP Celebrating Egypt". The concept was to create a chronology of the evolution of visual graphics in Egypt, by showcasing four eras in the history of the country. This project represented an opportunity to celebrate the Egyptian heritage and to create a sense of pride amongst Egyptians, in addition to reviving their sense of belonging to their beloved country.

As part of this project as well, we started a competition at the Helwan University, during which students had to compete by creating different can designs with one slogan in mind: The celebration of Egyptian identity.

My journey does not stop here. I still would like to start a visual revolution in Egypt and in the Middle East. I would like to promote Graphic Design in the field of education and raise awareness about its importance in our daily lives. I hope to one day help spread the concept of Graphic Design in various fields such as education, health, politics, in addition to any other fields in which I could contribute to the revival of my country and the region's culture and history. Art can indeed promote culture and find new ways to preserve history while keeping an eye on the future, my goal is to introduce a new perspective to the treasures of our renowned history, in a way that is modern and that can reach as many people as possible.

Watch her TED Talk here:

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The Role of Graphic Design in Preserving Arab Identity

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I am an Egyptian, Arab, Muslim woman. These adjectives combined form a "dangerous" element in a patriarchal society afflicted with Islamophobia and by the obliteration of the Arab identity. My existence in this world has forced me to defend myself for no particular reason.

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A History of Arab Graphic Design on JSTOR

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The first-ever book-length history of Arab graphicdesign PROSE AWARD WINNER, ART HISTORY & CRITICISMArab graphic design emerged in the early twentieth centu...

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by Bahia Shehab and Haytham Nawar

360 Pages, 9.50 x 8.25 in, 659 color illustrations

Paperback

9789774168918

December 2020

Region: Worldwide

PDF

9781649031952

December 2020

Region: Worldwide

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AUC Press - A History of Arab Graphic Design

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PROSE Award Winner, Art History & CriticismThe first-ever book-length history of Arab graphic designArab graphic design emerged in the early twentieth ce...

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The TypoArabic research project concluded on 3 June 2022, and I am delighted to announce that its principal output, the edited volume Arabic Typography: History and Practice, has now been published by niggli. As foreshadowed in my post in June 2021, a group of esteemed colleagues were invited to contribute chapters drawing on their own research. Despite demanding day jobs, everyone stayed the course - a rare achievement for edited volumes and a demonstration of the exceptional commitment by the authors.

The book opens with a preface by Robert Bringhurst, who reflects on the importance of looking beyond your immediate typographic surroundings - in a manner that is more engaged than a mere 'tourist jaunt'. Bringhurst's framing of this book as a gateway to one of the world's great scriptorial traditions provides an ideal entry point to the following discussion of Arabic typography and type-making.

Taking over, Gerry Leonidas's introduction considers how typographic practice has been reflected in writing, how it tended to 'think about itself'. He discusses the challenge that typography, 'a domain of practice', has had in finding modes of discourse appropriate to its nature, and accommodating sources that fall outside the established genres of academic literature. Reviewing a selection of key historical texts on typography, Leonidas identifies a tendency towards one-dimensional descriptions of techniques and monolithic prescriptions of practice that reflect commercial interests and single, isolated viewpoints with a predominantly anglocentric tilt. Reflecting on their scope of discussion, applicability, and contextualisation, Leonidas's piece throws the exclusion of most of the world's writing systems from typographic literature into sharp contrast. He identifies a flattening of complexity in discourse that extends into practice: a trend that continued from manual craft all the way into digital typography, dominated by an industry whose geographic location perpetuates narrowly anglophone approaches. Whilst singling out important contributions that serve as correctives to this trend, he concludes that 'across writing systems the bibliography on research-informed practice in typography is partial at best'. Against this background, Leonidas finds that owing to the multitude of perspectives of Arabic Typography: History and Practice, its foundation in research, and its transparent arguments, 'it can be claimed to represent a paradigm shift for typographic scholarship, across writing systems.'

Continuing in this reflective vein, Emanuela Conidi offers a thorough discussion of her approach to the study of Arabic foundry type. Considering the historical circumstances of practice - from early modern Europe to the last pre-industrial Arabic fonts made in the Middle East - she emphasises the influence that various agents and their respective means had on print artefacts. Conidi scrutinises the bearing that sources - both material and personal - had on printer's types, considering factors such as script competence, language proficiency, and technical mastery. She identifies how manuscripts - of varying quality - influenced punchcutters, and shows in great detail how various Arabic metal fonts replicated, interpreted, and diverged from characteristics of the Arabic script. Raising concepts such as 'unintended' as opposed to 'deliberate' variation of letterforms in manuscript practice and print, Conidi's visually rich discussion, is a tour-de-force of typographic scholarship. In a concise overview of the first two centuries of Arabic printing, she highlights milestones of type-making, analysing the respective achievements, shortcomings, and influences on subsequent contributions. The resulting picture complicates established narratives of typographic history. In her concluding discussion, Conidi considers how the in-depth analysis of foundry type and its juxtaposition with manuscript models can yield insights into type-making processes. By means of select case studies, she demonstrates various approaches to the typographic interpretation of the Arabic script, casting light on the influence of tools and script competence on type-making.

Borna Izadpanah, in turn, focuses on typographic printing in Qajar Iran from 1818-1900. Drawing on a spate of historical sources, he discusses in unprecedented detail when and how Arabic movable type was introduced to Iran, revealing new details and correcting earlier accounts. Quoting from original documents, Izadpanah adds depth and context in a manner that enriches historical developments with a sensitivity for the human dimension, and amplifies historiography in our field. In the process, he identifies and discusses unknown editions, overlooked copies, and their respective types, recalibrating the status quo of Persian printing history. Starting with the unresolved questions surrounding the first printed book in the country, Izadpanah charts the following developments in Tabriz, Tehran, and Isfahan, the key cities for the emergence of typographic print in Iran. Further to a chronological account, he considers the origins of typefaces, the genres of books, and revisits the established historiography of printed Qur'āns, challenging central assumptions of the field. Whilst focussed on history, Izadpanah's essay also discusses the use of illustrations and aspects of book layouts that emerged in Qajar Iran, broadening the perspective towards typographic design and contemporary applications. Thus, a line is drawn from nineteenth century foundry type to the work of Hossein Abdollah-zadeh Haghighi, a central figure of Iranian type design in the twentieth century. Izadpanah's piece concludes with an overview of all Persian naskh types identified during the era under review and makes a powerful case for the existence of an independent, indigenous type-making culture in Qajar Iran.

Onur Yazıcıgil investigates the history of Ottoman naskh printing types, and stitches together the most complete account of the subject yet. His piece begins with a concise overview of the origins and development of the calligraphic style, discussing key protagonists in its evolution and the specific visual qualities of Ottoman naskh. Turning to typography, Yazıcıgil begins his account with a concise review of the work of the Müteferriḳa press, evaluating its typeface and assessing its contribution to the further development of the craft in the region. Whereas Müteferriḳa's pioneering work has received considerable attention in the literature, Yazıcıgil breaks new ground in his in-depth discussion of the types used at Ottoman presses during the nineteenth century. Starting with Bōghos Arabian's naskh font for the Mühendisḫāne - the first name of the Ottoman government printing house - and continuing with work done at private print shops, Yazıcıgil combines a detailed analysis of typeforms with a contextualisation of typographic achievements within wider historical circumstances. Using original sources from the Ottoman Imperial archives, he draws a finely nuanced picture of the Arabic type-making trade in Istanbul, touching on economics, competition, and censorship. The portrait that emerges is one of a multi-ethnical and cross-confessional craft that operated at the interface of a modernising society with a traditional bureaucracy and state. Whilst formally rooted in tradition, Ottoman type-makers and printers used current techniques, were connected with fellow colleagues across the Middle East, in Europe and beyond, and contributed a central strand to the formation of a modern society.

In my own historical essay, I investigate further the questions surrounding the contribution of typography to the emergence of the modern Middle East. Taking the Nahḍah - the movement of Arabic literary renewal - as its point of reference, the essay develops a typographic perspective of this central cultural phenomenon, investigating its material form. Thus it looks at the important and little explored role that the applied crafts of the printing trades played in the formation of the Nahḍah. Whilst focusing on the physical and visual characteristics of exemplary book productions of this era, the essay also considers the context in which they emerged. The essay touches on the technical, political, and economical influences that shaped the books of the Nahḍah, and explores the trade as an interregional network: tracing the fluid and often reciprocal influences of the publishing centres in Cairo, Beirut, and Istanbul. From the Mehāh-ı Miyāh (treatise of water), published in the 1790s, to a 1911 edition of Qāsim Amīn's al-Marʾah al-Jadīdah, the essay charts the evolution of Arabic typography in the long nineteenth century. Through the examination of a dozen publications, the essay sheds light on various, instructive aspects of the history of Arabic typography during this important, foundational phase. Its central argument - that the typographic craft supplied the material fabric of the Nahḍah - is reiterated in the conclusion of the piece, arguing for a new appreciation of the role that the form of print played in the emergence of a modern Middle East.

The second part of the book, 'Foundations of Arabic typography', focuses on the practice of Arabic typography. Inspired by Jost Hochuli's concise classic ( Detail in typography) it discusses central aspects of Arabic typographic design for practitioners. Principally conceived for students and designers who are not fully familiar with the Arabic script, it hopes to contribute to addressing a glaring gap in current literature. Whereas there are numerous, and often excellent guides and manuals on typography from a Western perspective, there are very few publications in English that are concerned with the use of type in other scripts. Yet, increasingly design practitioners are confronted with languages and scripts that they have not grown up with. Commonly, this encounter is biased towards a Western, Latin-centric design language. This is no fault of the protagonists, but the result of a lack of sound, comprehensive resources. 'Foundations of Arabic typography' therefore introduces the reader to central characteristics of the Arabic script, discusses some elements of its manuscript tradition, and considers key questions of micro-typography. It explores some of the nuts and bolts of text composition - measure, interlinear space, justification - and discusses the particularities of poetry and multilingual texts. It casts a critical view on some terminology and the suitability of design approaches, and offers some hands-on advice for a selection of use cases. Finally, with cross references from and to the historical studies in the first part of the book, 'Foundations of Arabic typography' exemplifies the concept of research-informed design.

Arabic Typography: History and Practice will be presented on 5 November 2022 in the context of a special issue of ISType in Istanbul. As first announced in September, the one-day conference will be hosted at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum and will interface leading authorities in Arabic typography and calligraphy with the book's authors, weaving together perspectives from design, research, and interdisciplinary practices.

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'Arabic Typography: History and Practice' is out now - TypoArabic

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Arabic Typography: History and Practice has just been published, offering unprecedented scope of discussion and depth of engagement.

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For as long as it has existed, graphic design has been proven an efficient tool in driving ideologies and creating change; We see it all around war stricken countries, from carefully placed leaflets to political comics that hope to embed comedy in the heart of crisis. Its impact in the Middle East is no different, and although this part of the world has seen more tragedy than the rest, its relationship with design has been heavily influenced by political agendas, taboos and violence. Most of the research material we can find on  modern Arab design holds some context of war, civil unrest or revolution; consequently, new age designers are absorbing subconscious prejudices regarding the history and practice and failing to develop and progress in the field as they should.

In this essay I hope to explore the colonial ties we as arabs hold with the world of design, the impact design has/had on modern day arabs pre and post revolution and the modern day relationship between new and upcoming arab designers and the arab design scene. Specifically, I want to research key movements such as the Arab spring of 2011-2016, the Palestinian Nekba, as well as events significant to the western world such as NATO Involvement in Libya and 9/11. Along with this I hope to research the impact these wars and times of hardship have had on the Arab world of design. Specifically i would like find out more about generational trauma, prejudice, mindset and the current creative space available to members of the diaspora and others.

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"Constantinople", a 'ferro-concrete poem' from Tango with Cows by the Russian Futurist Vasily Kamensky, 1914

Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct meaning of its own. Concrete poetry relates more to the visual than to the verbal arts although there is a considerable overlap in the kind of product to which it refers. Historically, however, concrete poetry has developed from a long tradition of shaped or patterned poems in which the words are arranged in such a way as to depict their subject.

Though the term 'concrete poetry' is modern, the idea of using letter arrangements to enhance the meaning of a poem is old. Such shaped poetry was popular in Greek Alexandria during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, although only the handful which were collected together in the Greek Anthology now survive. Examples include poems by Simmias of Rhodes in the shape of an egg, wings and a hatchet, as well as Theocritus ' pan-pipes.

The post-Classical revival of shaped poetry seems to begin with the Gerechtigkeitsspirale (spiral of justice), a relief carving of a poem at the pilgrimage church of St. Valentin, Kiedrich. The text is carved in the form of a spiral on the front of one of the church pews and created in 1510 by master carpenter Erhart Falckener. But the heyday of the revival of shaped poetry came in the Baroque period when poets, in the words of Jeremy Adler, "did away with the more-or-less arbitrary appearance of the text, turned the incidental fact of writing into an essential facet of composition, and thereby...created a union of poetry with the visual arts". There were already precedents for this in Micrography, a technique for creating visual images used by Hebrew artists, which involves organizing small arrangements of Biblical texts such that they form images which illustrate the subject of the text. Micrography allowed the creation of images of natural objects by Jews without directly breaking the prohibition of creating "graven images" that might be interpreted as idolatry. The technique is now used by both religious and secular artists and is similar to the use of Arabic texts in Islamic calligraphy.

George Herbert's "Easter Wings" (1633), printed sideways on facing pages so that the lines would call to mind angels flying with outstretched wings

Early religious examples of shaped poems in English include " Easter Wings" and " The Altar" in George Herbert's The Temple (1633) and Robert Herrick's "This crosstree here", which is set in the shape of a cross, from his Noble Numbers (1647). Secular examples include poems on the subject of drinking in the shape of wine flagons by Rabelais and Charles-François Panard (1750), supplemented by the elaborate goblet of Quirinus Moscherosch (1660), the playful "A Toast" (Zdravljica, 1844) by France Prešeren, with stanzas in the shape of wine-glasses, and The Mouse's Tale, a shaped poem published in 1865 by Lewis Carroll.

The approach reappeared at the start of the 20th century, initially in the Calligrammes (1918) of Guillaume Apollinaire, with poems in the shape of a necktie, a fountain and raindrops running down a window, among other examples. In that era also there were typographical experiments by members of avant-garde movements such as Futurism, Dada and Surrealism in which lay-out moved from an auxiliary expression of meaning to artistic primacy. Thus the significance of the sound poetry in Marinetti's Zang Tumb Tumb (1912) is expressed through pictorial means. Similarly in Germany Raoul Hausmann claimed that the typographic style of his 'Phonemes' allowed the reader to recognise what sound was intended. In Russia the Futurist poet Vasily Kamensky went so far as to term the typography of his Tango with Cows, published in 1914, 'ferro-concrete poems' ( zhelezobetonnye poemy), long before the name became current elsewhere.

A further move away from overt meaning occurred where 'poems' were simplified to a simple arrangement of the letters of the alphabet. Louis Aragon, for example, exhibited the sequence from a to z and titled it "Suicide" (1926), while Kurt Schwitters' "ZA (elementary)" has the alphabet in reverse, and the Catalan writer Josep Maria Junoy (1885-1955) placed just the letters Z and A at the top and bottom of the page under the title "Ars Poetica".

During the early 1950s two Brazilian artistic groups producing severely abstract and impersonal work were joined by poets linked to the São Paulo magazine Noigandres who began to treat language in an equally abstract way. Their work was termed "concrete poetry" after they exhibited along with the artists in the National Exhibition of Concrete Art (1956/57). The poets included Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pignatari, who were joined in the exhibition by Ferreira Gullar, Ronaldo Azeredo and Wlademir Dias Pino from Rio de Janeiro. In 1958 a Brazilian concrete poetry manifesto was published and an anthology in 1962.

Dom Sylvester Houédard claimed that it was the 1962 publication in The Times Literary Supplement of a letter from the Portuguese E.M. de Melo e Castro that awakened British writers such as himself, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan to the possibilities of Concrete Poetry. However, there were by this time other European writers producing similar work. In 1954 the Swedish poet and visual artist Öyvind Fahlström had published the manifesto Hätila Ragulpr på Fåtskliaben. Similarly in Germany Eugen Gomringer published his manifesto vom vers zur konstellation (from line to constellation), in which he declared that a poem should be "a reality in itself" rather than a statement about reality, and "as easily understood as signs in airports and traffic signs". The difficulty in defining such a style is admitted by Houédard's statement that "a printed concrete poem is ambiguously both typographic-poetry and poetic-typography".

Ian Hamilton Finlay sculpture in Stuttgart, 1975; the word schiff (ship) is carved in reverse and can only be decoded when it floats reflected on water

Another difficulty of definition is caused by the way such works cross artistic boundaries into the areas of music and sculpture, or can alternatively be defined as sound poetry, visual poetry, found poetry and typewriter art. Henri Chopin's work was related to his musical treatment of the word. Kenelm Cox (1927-68) was a kinetic artist "interested in the linear, serial aspects of visual experience but particularly in the process of change," whose revolving machines transcended the static page in being able to express this. Ian Hamilton Finlay's concrete poetry began on the page but then moved increasingly towards three dimensional figuration and afterwards to site-specific art in the creation of his sculpture garden at Little Sparta. The Italian Maurizio Nannucci's Dattilogrammmi experiments (1964/1965) were also transitional, preluding his move into light art.

Bob Cobbing, who was also a sound poet, had been experimenting with typewriter and duplicator since 1942. Of its possibilities in suggesting the physical dimension of the auditory process, he declared that "One can get the measure of a poem with the typewriter's accurate left/right & up & down movements; but superimposition by means of stencil and duplicator enable one to dance to this measure." Houédard's entirely different work was also produced principally on the typewriter but approximates more to painterly and sculptural procedures. So too does that of the American Minimalist artist Carl André, beginning from about 1958 and in parallel with his changing artistic procedures. And in Italy Adriano Spatola (1941-88) developed the artistic fragmentation of language using various visual techniques in his Zeroglifico (1965/6).

Edwin Morgan's experiments with concrete poetry covered several other aspects of it, including elements of found poetry 'discovered' by misreading and isolating elements from printed sources. "Most people have probably had the experience of scanning a newspaper page quickly and taking a message from it quite different from the intended one. I began looking deliberately for such hidden messages...preferably with the visual or typographical element part of the point." Another aspect of the search for unintended concordances of meaning emerges in A Humument, the lifework of the visual artist Tom Phillips, who uses painterly and decorative procedures to isolate them on the page.

Despite such blurring of artistic boundaries, concrete poetry can be viewed as taking its place in a predominantly visual tradition stretching over more than two millennia that seeks to draw attention to the word in the space of the page, and to the spaces between words, as an aid to emphasising their significance. In recent years, this approach has led Mario Petrucci to suggest that the "extreme example" of concrete poetry can be seen as nested within the larger concept of Spatial Form. Starting from the observation that poetry can usually be told from prose simply by looking at it, this reading of Spatial Form encompasses the many aspects of subtle visual significance that are held, for instance, by typeface or in the textures of repeated letters, as well as the more overt visual signals generated by the poem's layout.

Jeremy Adler ''Technopaignia, Carmina Figurata and Bilder-Reime. Seventeenth¬Century Figured Poetry in Historical Context'', Comparative Criticism IV (1982), pp. 107-147.

Jeremy Adler and Ulrich Ernst Text als Figur. Visuelle Poesie von der Antike bis zur Moderne, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel and VCH, Acta Humaniora, Weinheim, Third edition, 1990.

Bäckström, Per. "Fahlström stannade i Stockholm. 'HÄTILA RAGULPR PÅ FÅTSKLIABEN' och diktarkonferensen i Sigtuna 1953", Edda 2019 no. 1.

Bäckström, Per. "Words as things. Concrete Poetry in Scandinavia", Cahiers de la nouvelle Europe: special issue Transfers, Appropriations and Functions of Avant-Garde in Central and Northern Europe, 1909-1989, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2012.

Bob Cobbing (ed), GLOUP and WOUP, Gillingham 1974.

Peter Finch (ed), Typewriter Poems, Cardiff 1972.

Dick Higgins, Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature, State University of New York, 1987.

Nigel McLoughlin (ed), The Portable Poetry Workshop, Palgrave 2017 (Part I:12, Spatial Form); Print ISBN 978-1-137-60703-4, Electronic ISBN 978-1-137-60596-2.

Maurizio Nannucci, Exempla, Anthology of concrete and visual poetry, Florence 1970.

John Sharkey (ed), Mindplay, an anthology of British Concrete Poetry, London 1971.

Dencker, Klaus Peter (Trans.Harry Polkinhorn) 'From Concrete to Visual poetry' Kaldron-online & Light & Dust Anthology of Poetry 2000.

Medium-Art, Selection of Hungarian Experimental Poetry, editors Zoltan Frater and Andras Petocz, published by Magvető, 1990, Budapest, ISBN 963-14-1680-1

Rasula, Jed and Steve McCaffery: Imagining Language: An Anthology, The MIT Press, 2001

Solt, Mary Ellen:Concrete Poetry: A World View, Indiana University Press, 1970

Robert G. Warnock and Roland Folter: "The German Pattern Poem", in Festschrift Detlev Schumann, Munich 1970, pp. 40-73

Greg Thomas: Border Blurs: Concrete Poetry in England and Scotland, 2019, Liverpool University Press

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Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct meaning of its own.

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Typotheque: Balkan Sans font, a typeface family for print and web

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Design concept

Balkan is a bi-script Latin and Cyrillic typeface system rooted in the linguistic proximity of languages of former Yugoslavia (Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Serbian). The Balkan typeface system depoliticises and reconciles the scripts, for the sake of education, tolerance and, above all, communication. Balkan transliterates and translates Croatian Latin into Serbian Cyrillic and vice versa, thus the fonts serve as educational software capable of reconciling disparate scripts.

Four styles

There are two styles of Balkan - style A situates the Latin characters on top, and Cyrillic at the bottom, while style B reverses this order. There are three more substyles (1, 2, 3) in option A - each with slightly different treatments of elements that exceed the bounding box of the words.

Transliteration options

Originally, Balkan was developed for writing Serbian and Croatian, which share the same sounds. Later, we expanded Balkan to also include other Cyrillic- and Latin-based languages, which was a complex task as there are a large number of these, and there is no single agreed standard for its transliteration into Latin script. We reviewed the most common romanisation schemes to create OpenType Stylistic Sets that encompass most common options for transliterating Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian letters into English and German.

Awards TDC Typographic Excellence 2012, Special Jury Award at 23rd Biennal of Design Slovenia 2012, Typographica Favorite Typefaces of 2012, Grand Prix Croatian Designers Society 2016

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Typotheque: Balkan Sans font, a typeface family for print and web

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Balkan Sans typeface system transliterates Croatian Latin into Serbian Cyrillic script and vice versa, depoliticising and reconciling two cultures with the aim of furthering communication, education, and, above all, tolerance.

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The community is, at its heart, political. We are a global network of women, connected together by our love of letters, type, and typography. Our objective is to champion anyone who identifies as a woman in type, provide a platform for them to show and share their work, and welcome them to a community that will not ignore their voice, but amplify it. Alphabettes started through the joint effort of Indra Kupferschmid and Amy Papaelias in 2015, and since then the network has grown to include over 245 members worldwide. As a community, we aim to respect and reflect on the opinions of all of our members, and we continue to learn and grow together.

During the last two weeks and following the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis policemen, the United States of America saw a powerful uprising opposing discrimination, violence, injustice, and systemic racism against Black people, the impact of which quickly rippled through the rest of the world. In a time when much of the world has retreated into their homes and maintaining social distancing has become a necessity for health, the urgency of protesting racism and discrimination and demanding justice has eclipsed a quiet survival. Since then, crowds of protestors have taken to the streets, statues glorifying racial bigots have been pulled down, and social media platforms have seen an overwhelming sharing of educational, supportive, and encouraging discourse regarding this call of eradicating racism. Donations have been made to individuals and organisations supporting this movement. No action is too small.

For a network like Alphabettes, we truly deliberated what tangible steps we could take to address the current situation, and show a palpable collective condemnation of racism. As a global network, we feel the devastating violations of human rights worldwide on a near-daily basis, whether they affect ourselves and our loved ones, our members and friends, our contributors, or those who follow our work. Because of this, we know that it is a constant battle to fight injustice and voice our outrage surrounding racism, discrimination, and oppression. As individuals, we have strived to reflect this, each to the best of our ability and on matters closest to our hearts. As a community, we take care to always be inclusive, and part of this inclusivity is to not disregard suffering in any part of the world in favour of another, whether it is Yemen, Syria, Hong Kong, India, Chile, Egypt, Lebanon, the USA, or elsewhere. The list is upsettingly long. Because of this, rather than simply declaring that we do not tolerate racism, we have decided to use this moment of collective reflection to listen, to look inwards and at ourselves, and to then take a step back and look at our industry, and ask what changes we can make today to address the bias and appropriation that have regrettably become a normalised and acceptable part of the type and typography profession. We have reached a list of points of action we can take today. It starts with each of us, and again, no action is too small.

1.

We need to actively include more BIPOC in our events, conferences, and communities. While the value and importance of diversity at conferences is widely understood, it is very clear that there is still much work to be done to achieve true inclusivity and accessibility. It is on all of us - particularly conference and event organisers and sponsors - to seek out diversity amongst the speakers, those holding workshops, and the attendees. As the organiser: Did you reach out to a wider circle of people within the industry for speaker suggestions? Did you prioritise lifting up speakers of colour? Did you set out a clear and easy to find code of conduct on your event page to guarantee a safe and inclusive environment for all participants? Did your code of conduct clarify zero tolerance for harassment of any kind? It is a heavy responsibility to take on the task of organising an event, but if done with careful consideration, it can ensure a richer event where everyone can learn from a wider range of expertise. This however does not end with organisers. As a sponsor: Did you use your privilege to insist on a diverse lineup of speakers? If no, why not? It is well within your rights to enquire on these matters. As a speaker: Did you get invited to present at a conference and find that the lineup of speakers was particularly pale? Did this bother you? Did you get in touch with the organisers and voice this concern? Did you step away from the presentation as an act of solidarity if your input on this matter was not appreciated? Was the event made accessible to all? Were earnest steps taken to ensure that minorities and attendees from diverse backgrounds were able to attend? These are difficult questions, and it's hard but necessary work for an industry that wants to be truly diverse.

At Alphabettes, we recognise we are not outside of this; we have always aimed for diversity among our members and community, but we will actively increase our outreach to BIPOC women, and challenge our own status quo. If you would like suggestions for speakers at your events, get in touch with us - we can make recommendations or help circulate a call for presentations. We have constantly made an effort to be part of the solution, and will continue to do so.

2.

We need to stop using the term Non-Latin. It is exclusionary, and loaded with bias. Prejudice or discrimination against a certain group is the very definition of racism, and as such there is no room for argument in favour of using what has become a shorthand that devalues and further marginalises all the scripts in the world in favour of one. Historically terms like Oriental, non-Roman, and other similar phrases were used by nineteenth-century printers and typefounders who required a marketable and easy phrase to set themselves apart from their competitors by boasting an expertise in the printing of scripts they had no in-depth knowledge of. Today, this phrase has become normalised in every sphere of the type industry: in conferences, offices, foundries, competitions, and educational institutions. There are arguments for this phrase being acceptable as it draws attention to the marginalised. Can we honestly accept that this is true? The phrase does not draw attention to Hebrew any more than Devanagari, Arabic, or Thai, but rather only re-centers the attention to what they are not: Latin. There are arguments for requiring a replacement phrase. To this we can only respond with a question: Why? Why does anyone feel the need to make this distinction at all? Is a non-Latin extension of a typeface not really just a multi-script expansion? Is it necessary to differentiate if someone is a teacher of non-Latin type design when Latin type instructors aren't expected to do the same?

At Alphabettes, we are collectively dedicated to eradicating this offensive, Eurocentric term from our vocabulary, and all our past posts where it occurs. We also oppose any context in which various scripts are grouped together under an umbrella term. So, we will no longer be complicit in using this type of biased wording, we will rethink how we consider all scripts of the world, and hold ourselves accountable to using inclusive language. We invite you to do the same, so we can collectively make our industry welcoming to everyone.

If you would like to read more about this, we can direct you to Soulaf Khalifeh's thoughtful piece What if Arabs Had Invented the Printing Press?

3.

We need to diversify educators, our students, and our curriculums. If you work in a university/college/design school of any sort and are in the position to do so, mention new position openings to BIPOC, or invite them as guest lecturers. Are you leaving your teaching position? If you are asked for recommendations for the vacant position, check your own bias, and think about how your position in recommending a new person can help diversify our community. Educators are big influencers on the next generation. If we have more diversity among educators, it means they will inspire more diverse students that see themselves in their teachers, and will subsequently aspire to more. As design teachers, what language are we teaching our students? Let us reflect back on the previous point; the casual use of the term non-Latin will lead to an inevitable amplification of the phrase by some students, and potentially offend others, who will often not feel they are in a position to confront us, their educators. So instead, they will sit with feelings of hurt and discrimination. It is incredibly effortless to avoid inflicting this discomfort on a young person that looks up to us. What values do we teach our design students when it comes to other cultures? Are we doing students that come from different backgrounds and want to better design typefaces for their scripts justice with our feedback? Did we try to connect such students with a specialised expert, and make sure that these experts were appropriately compensated and credited for their time and expertise? Very importantly: When did we last evaluate our teaching material? Is the traditional pathway of teaching type design through revivals of typefaces all drawn by Cisgender white men still valid? Is it time to rethink this approach and expand the scope to include the last century, or include non-book ephemera?

4.

We need to discontinue the practice of designing for scripts we did not grow up reading and writing for custom/client projects. Getting this work can be due to factors like our geographic or financial privilege or prominence within our industry. Whenever we get such opportunities, we should pass the project on to those that have the prerogative to take on the work as native users and designers of the script, and yield our position of power to those otherwise marginalised. Whether we are able to do justice to the design of this given script or not is outside the point of this post, however, we do encourage reflection on whether research on a script is the same as a lifetime of being immersed in it. This is a call to action and not a debate of this topic, so we will leave it with some food for thought from scholar Ayesha Chaudhry, who looks at this issue in the context of Islamic studies:
The study of Islam in the western academy follows the frames of these early colonialist scholars, where white scholars can presume to master and speak authoratively about Islam and Muslims. They can presume to know them better than they know themselves, to correct their knowledge about their own religion and traditions, based on "arms length," "objective" study, treating their distance as an asset rather than as a weakness and shortcoming. In what other discipline is intimate knowledge of a subject, knowing too much about a subject, a drawback? Only in disciplines constructed around the imagined "other," for instance in race studies. It never ceases to amaze me that whites presume themselves to be in an ideal position to study, examine, and judge racism, when they are uniquely unqualified for such study given that they have never experienced racism.
Beyond the point of whether it is possible to design for a script we are not intimately familiar with through cultural immersion, it is important to recognise that by taking on the design ourselves, we will inevitably be taking work and compensation from others, particularly BIPOC who come from regions and cultures that have long been exploited for financial gain. For a long time now, the use of native consultants in instances where the lead designer lacks nativity and thus ingrained knowledge of a script has been a band-aid over these situations: We are using a native consultant, so our design will communicate with its intended reader. At the same time, the wound underneath continues to fester; why was the consultant not given the work in the first place, if what they know is essential to the outcome of the design, if we needed hand-holding through the process? Who does this collaboration benefit? Do we even clearly acknowledge the help in the end, or do we publicly benefit from this exchange and claim our own expertise? These are uncomfortable questions, but we need to identify our own privilege, sit with our discomfort, and recognise that ignoring such questions is only possible because of our privilege.

Returning to our thread, if you work in an office and have a say in hiring new people, push for hiring designers that are native users of scripts you get a lot of work for. If you're unsuccessful in this endeavor for reasons that are outside your power (hiring laws, applicant pool, etc) then recognise that those portions of the work need to be outsourced, rather than giving the work to others that may unintentionally impose their visual bias on another script, all the while taking valuable opportunities from those who have gained a large part of their visual language from growing up with said script. If, once you find the right person to take on the project, you recognise that they require additional support and guidance, be an ally. When you do collaborate with minorities, properly compensate and very importantly, credit them. Tell everyone about their work, because they deserve the recognition, and because it will help them to continue to get work. This is not limited to practical typeface design, and can also apply to type-related research. Reflect on your research and ask if you are the best person to take it on and how your displacement from your topic may have impacted your work. If you find the answer to be no, pivot. Find a new angle for the research that addresses your shortcomings.

All of this is of course not easy, and requires fundamental changes in the way many foundries operate, but these are ways in which we can take impactful action against biased structures within our own industry. Whether we have taken work that could have gone to native designers/researchers/educators in the past is not as important as whether we take this moment to reflect, to educate ourselves, and to understand how we, as a member of this industry can use any means within our power to change things.

These are the points of action that we feel can have immediate and meaningful results to change our industry for the better. We would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank others in the industry who have also recognised that our current norms tend to favor those of us that are more privileged, and have taken steps to even the field for true equality. Below is a list of opportunities made available specifically to BIPOC type designers. If we have left anything out, please let us know so we can make a truly comprehensive list:

Type Design A-Z from Lynne Yun: This online series aims to build a solid foundation of knowledge for what you need to know before embarking on your first typeface design, and then carrying it to the finish line. For anyone who identifies as BIPOC, they can access the content with free registration by filling out this form.

The Malee Scholarship from Sharp Type: The Malee Scholarship grants $6,000 USD annually to one young woman-of-colour over 16 years of age. It also includes a 4-week in-studio mentorship program, where Sharp Type will provide professional & creative guidance with the production of their typeface, as an elective. Applications for 2020 have now closed, but keep an eye on their application page for next year.

TDC scholarships from the Type Directors Club: In support of design education, the TDC has awarded scholarships to promising students of typography since 1994. Three such scholarships are open for application annually, and of the three, the TDC Superscript Scholarship sponsored by Monotype (in particular) recognises students of colour studying in the type design discipline at a college or university in the United States. You can find the application form here.

The BIPOC fund and Type Crit Crew organised by Juan Villanueva: The Type Crit Crew is a free resource for type design students to meet 1:1 with experienced type designers for virtual critiques. To learn more and apply or offer your expertise, follow this link. The application period for Juan's BIPOC fund to attend his Principles of Typeface Design: Display Type at Cooper Union has now ended, but through his efforts and the generosity of the type community, he was able to raise funds for five people who identified as BIPOC for this course.

The ATypI Diversity Fund: An initiative to enable students, educators, designers, and researchers from underrepresented communities free registration to ATypI events and funds to help offset travel.

Thank you all. We will keep having the hard conversations, continue to listen to those that think and look differently from ourselves, educate ourselves about systemic racism and how it harms our profession, and move forward so we can truly work towards achieving the type industry and community we want to see. An industry that is inclusive, diverse and equal. Letterforms build words and words are one of the strongest and most important tools we have to demand and make social change. It's time to ask: what more can be done?
Note: This post is a collective effort by many but does not reflect the opinions of every member of the Alphabettes network.

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The community is, at its heart, political. We are a global network of women, connected together by our love of letters, type, and typography. Our objective is to champion anyone who identifies as a woman in type, provide a platform for them to show and share their work, and welcome them to a community that will not ignore their voice, but amplify it.

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One of the things I have thought about since that article came out is why I read that article the way I do, and why others did so differently. I am someone who would both benefit and is restricted by what this article puts forward as an action in point #4. How do I deal with this contradiction? India is home to a lot of scripts and languages. I have lived in various parts of the country and in doing so have had to learn a few of the languages spoken in those parts. My fluency in those languages today is at varying levels. How do I engage with the many scripts that I am familiar with? Can I design for one of the native scripts that I grew up with, which is different from the one I am most comfortable with? Everyone's worldview affects the way they understand things and I realise how mine has affected my own understanding. This point makes me uncomfortable too. So I push myself to sit with this discomfort. Which is what has brought me to try and view this contested point #4 in non-binary terms. When people are expressing themselves in unfamiliar ways, I assume that my work is to understand their point and that healthy boundaries are essential for everyone to flourish. Allow me to explain this further.

When I read "We need to discontinue the practice of designing for scripts we did not grow up reading and writing for custom/client projects," I not only think about who else apart from myself will benefit from this action but also who is going to enforce this "Action"? Who is going to hold people accountable? There is no governing body that will penalise people if they do not comply. There is no one who will enforce this "call to action". It is up to one's own discretion. This point #4 is at best a request. Maybe it's important to question why you might read it as an order. Why might you have gotten so defensive about being asked to respect a boundary? Did the discomfort stem from the fear of losing power, privilege, and comforts? Or maybe the fact that it came from a group of women? Would it instead be helpful to reflect on how resistance to foreign ideas can get in the way of a common goal? There is no benefit to pedantically dissecting the article and really no objective response to this call to action.

Additionally, while you have the right to feel uncomfortable, others have silently put up with the discomfort of countless microaggressions and injustices. Not every person experiencing systemic oppression has the benefit of having access to a platform that allows them to speak their mind. They might not have the vocabulary or the ability to articulate the way they feel about this. You have the benefit of reading what I write here because of my relative position of privilege in my own country. Simply growing up in a house that spoke English gave me access to opportunities that are not available to a majority of the people I have studied and worked within my country. This access is not universal even internationally. It does not escape me for one moment that there are far more intelligent and talented people who have not had the luck and opportunities I have enjoyed. I can make valid claims of hard work and effort that I have personally put in, but I also know how much my circumstances have allowed me to reach where I am. Is it correct to label someone that has relative privilege as an inspiration or role model when only a few of us make it past the hardships of a system that has been designed to exclude us? The myth that we are deserving of our successes because we have worked harder than others needs to be put to rest. It incorrectly implies that those who haven't achieved it have only themselves to blame. Certain groups of people shouldn't have to work harder than others to feel like they've earned their place in life. We shouldn't uphold the systems that made our own journeys difficult.

And sure, all of us have worked hard to get where we are, some just happen to be born in certain countries that have given them an undeniable advantage, primarily because of their countries' past actions. All this is of course not fair to anyone involved. But, fairness has always been relative. Maintaining the appearance of fairness that results in a gross distortion of reality. The Mercator projection is an example of this "fairness". It distorts the size of places and makes countries in the Northern hemisphere look like the size of continents. Yet it is still an accepted way to illustrate maps. Should that continue being the norm just because changing it will make people living in some countries feel uncomfortable? Or change the status quo? Just because someone feels a certain way or there is an accepted way to get things done, doesn't mean we must not question it. Just because someone feels a certain way, doesn't mean it correlates with the truth and lived experiences of other people. It might be helpful to enquire the reason why positions of importance in type design are dominated by people who are not native to that script rather than people who have grown up with it? And how can you help change that? It is this discrepancy that the article was addressing. Currently, the global economics of type design do not allow someone to enter the field easily, and even if they do, sustaining themselves purely on this craft is difficult. This is true for everyone but this truth is significantly harsher for people who come from countries with weaker currencies and restricted passports. There also happens to be an overlap in people with weaker currencies and passports and those who are underrepresented in type design. It should also be acknowledged that these are not the only factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of marginalized people in type design, since this is still a problem within Western countries. My experience, however, allows me to talk about factors affecting those outside of Western countries. Scholarships and mentorships can only take someone so far.

The ability to express my ideas stems partly from the very privileged upbringing I have enjoyed but some of it is also learned by consciously unlearning and re-educating myself about political and social and economic issues that affect those who have not had the same experiences I have. Additionally, I am extremely grateful for the benefit of a support system of friends to have heard me out, especially the many women who have trusted me with their stories, some of which are similar to mine and make me feel less alone and more courageous to write mine publicly. I have tried not to generalise my views, but hope they have allowed you the benefit of insight to something beyond what you felt when you read the article. It asks an important action from you. It's not easy but we cannot put ourselves in the centre of that decision. The article asks the type design industry to take affirmative action that will benefit those it is intended to help. I hope we can reflect on the ways we can contribute and help facilitate this change.

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One of the things I have thought about since that article came out is why I read that article the way I do, and why others did so differently. I am someone who would both benefit and is restricted by what this article puts forward as an action in point #4.

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Intercultural and decolonial: exploring frameworks for typographic practice  with Dr. Rathna Ramanathan

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This talk took place on December 6, 2021 as part of Type@Cooper’s Herb Lubalin Lecture Series. The generous support of TypeCulture has made this video archive possible. 

Digital connectivity, international migration and global health crisis have necessitated an urgent reconsideration of our approach to communication, language, and typography. Rathna Ramanathan’s talk as part of the Herb Lubalin Lecture series evaluates western canons and frameworks of typography and considers why taking an intercultural and decolonial approach to typographic practice is critically needed. 

Using examples from publishing practice – particularly, the Murty Classical Library of India, published by Harvard University Press, and books by Tara Books, an independent publisher in India — the talk explores different notions of reading and audience and stresses the importance of considerations of culture and context in our approach. It highlights examples from historical contemporary design practice to suggest developing a framework for typographic practice that considers different writing systems, visual cultures and multiple language contexts. 


The Murty Classical Library of India, published by Harvard University Press is a facing-page translation series that aims to present the greatest literary works of India from the past two millennia to the largest readership. The project provided a significant type design and typographic design challenge to create a framework for multiple languages now realised in 30 published titles. The typesetting and design of bilingual Indic texts of such range and complexity was unprecedented in modern book design practice and posed many challenges. 

Tara Books is an independent, feminist publisher that focuses on providing voice to marginalised communities and publishes texts for both young children and adults. Working within a vibrant Indian visual culture and context, Tara has explored different ways of reading that challenge convention and tradition. Their approach has pioneered a new approach to typography in India that is inspired by the unusual and unqiue context in which their books are made.

Dr Rathna Ramanathan is a typographer, researcher and educator known for her expertise in intercultural communication, and alternative publishing practices. She is Dean of Academic Strategy and Reader in Intercultural Communication at Central Saint Martins, London. She has a PhD in Typography and Graphic Communication from the University of Reading, runs her own studio Minus9, and is an ATypI Board Member. Originally from Chennai, India, Rathna is now based in London. Her research and practice are predominantly focused on the Global South, specifically South Asia. For the past twenty years, Rathna has headed research-led, intercultural, multi-platform graphic communication design projects, all fuelled by a love for, and life-long interest in typography and language, and a belief that communication is a fundamental human right.

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Why It's So Hard to Design Arabic Typefaces

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New type foundry TPTQ Arabic is dedicated to developing expressive, but authentic, Arabic typefaces.

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xylography being used in Asia since 866 C, 

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xylography being used in Asia since 866 C, 

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Very few would be able to reply if they were asked what xylography was. In fact, it is the technique of printing using wood finely carved for the purpose, commonly known as woodblock printing or simply block printing. Known to exist in China since 600 AD and soon after in Japan, it was originally used to print text or images on silk cloth.

The art travelled to Egypt and Syria during the second wave of the Great Migrations west from Asia between 700 - 900 AD, then to Anatolia with the Turks, and passed on to Byzantium. By then the technique had found its way to paper with the art of carving getting finer and finer.

It was already the 15th Century when the Europeans started to use block printing to print books (religious texts) whereas "Diamond Sutra," the earliest dated printed book known was printed in China in 868 AD.

Block printing on cloth or other soft materials such as soap is a traditional art form in Turkey with fine examples dating back to the 16th Century.

We as Verna Artisan Works offer handmade block printed clutches and also lavender soaps for our valued customers.

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Xylography; The Technique Know as Block Printing - Verna Artisan Works

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Very few would be able to reply if they were asked what xylography was. In fact, it is the technique of printing using wood finely carved for the purpose, commonly known as woodblock printing or simply block printing.

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how can a sphere be upside down? a  subconscious statement about how the west perceives itself

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how can a sphere be upside down? a  subconscious statement about how the west perceives itself

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The Art Newspaper - International art news and events

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The British artist Mark Wallinger has created a diplomatic problem by depicting Taiwan as an independent state in a prominent public artwork in central London. The work, entitled The World Turned Upside Down, is a 4-metre-diameter globe, which stands inverted on the north pole, set on the street outside the entrance to the London School of Economics (LSE).

The globe shows the island of Taiwan (which calls itself the Republic of China) as a sovereign entity, rather than as part of the People's Republic of China. The United Nations and virtually all its members, including the UK, do not recognise Taiwan as a separate sovereign state. Wallinger has also marked Lhasa, in Tibet, as a national capital, although Beijing alone is recognised as having this status.

When the work was unveiled on 26 March, Wallinger said that "the UN is the authority as to the names and borders", whereas his own globe represents "the world, as we know it from a different viewpoint; familiar, strange and subject to change".

It might therefore be thought that the artist was being deliberately provocative in giving Taiwan and Tibet their independence. However, Wallinger tells The Art Newspaper that these two changes to what is recognised by the UN had been "an error".

Giving Taiwan independent status on Wallinger's globe has angered mainland Chinese students at LSE and could even discourage donors and sponsors from the People's Republic.

Although recent news articles say that LSE has now agreed to change the colour of Taiwan from pink to yellow on the globe, to make it appear part of the People's Republic, these reports appear to be premature. An LSE spokeswoman told us this morning: "We are consulting our community and considering amendments to the work. No final decisions have been reached."

The LSE director, Minouche Shafik, may now be regretting what she said at the unveiling: "This bold new work by Mark Wallinger encapsulates what LSE is all about."

Whether Wallinger's globe is to be changed will depend on LSE's decision, but any alterations would almost certainly also require the artist's approval. Wallinger says that he feels it is up to LSE to advise on what would be appropriate and he now has "an open mind" on any changes.

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Wallinger's upside-down globe outside LSE angers Chinese students for portraying Taiwan as an independent state

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British artist says colouring Taiwan differently from China was his "error"

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hortus malabaricus and how it shows the weaponisation of typography in colonial practice

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hortus malabaricus and how it shows the weaponisation of typography in colonial practice

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Benjamin Schultze's translation of Johann Arndt's "De vero Christianismo" into Tamil, published in Halle (Saale) in 1751.

Title pages in Latin and Tamil, printed in red & black. Text in Tamil throughout.

Benjamin Schultze (1689-1760) served at the Danish mission at Tranquebar.

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Benjamin Schultze's translation of Johann Arndt's "De vero Christianismo" into Tamil, published in Halle (Saale) in 1751.

Title pages in Latin and Tamil, printed in red & black. Text in Tamil throughout.

Benjamin Schultze (1689-1760) served at the Danish mission at Tranquebar. https://t.co/c6uoi2CO70

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Recently AIGA just published an article on OCAD's efforts to create what they are calling a curriculum with a decolonial agenda. What's particularly interesting is that the article has been pitched as a 'success' story that American schools would do well to emulate. While this piece has been written sounding like a direct critique of the OCAD vision for decolonial design education as given in the article (regardless of how closely it follows the visions of the specific people cited in the article - I am aware that Dori Tunstall is a recent addition to OCAD and would question the extent to which the article accurately presents its content as specifically her vision for the school), the piece should be taken more as a general critique questioning the AIGA's Diversity and Inclusion Initiative and the kind of approaches and thought it champions regarding critical issues on gender, race, culture, and politics.

The critique will lay out why I think that the particular approach to decolonial design given is not only shallow, an approach that deals with symptoms rather than causes or roots, but actually dangerous, both in that it misrepresents and subverts the work that has been done in this area and co-opts the term into serving the very thing it opposes, what theorists of decoloniality like Walter Mignolo term the 'modern world-system' (Mignolo, 2002), or Euro\American neo-liberal capitalism, and in these early days when these conversations are new within the design disciplines, risks reducing and limiting them by taking on a prescriptive tone. At this time, when we need more nuanced thinking coming into the debates on design and its relation to the politics of difference, the last thing that will help, in my opinion, is rushing to turn what are extremely complex issues to think through into an 'action plan'. Therefore, instead of telling other design programs what they should be doing, the following could, using the case study above, be used as a guide on what not to do, and what to be very careful about, when setting up a program with a decolonial agenda.

Since the article is vague on its definitions and lacks any sources, it is first necessary to understand what decoloniality is, and why decolonial theory emerged as a very specific field of responses to a very specific framing of the legacy of Western colonialism - what separates it from say, the way scholars working in subaltern studies or globalization theory deal with coloniality and modernity (the understanding of both is, I might add, also by and large absent in design knowledge - as a field, historically, the design disciplines' understanding of culture and cultural theory has always been poor). Firstly, decoloniality is nothing new. Although theoretical scholarship on decoloniality can be traced as far back as the 1910's (As a scholar specializing in South Asian contexts and histories of decoloniality, I trace it to Rabindranath Tagore's early writings on nationalism and the future of India - other scholars would cite people like Frantz Fanon writing in the 1950s and 60s about decolonization movements in French Algeria and elsewhere in Northern Africa), decoloniality as a specific political agenda can be traced back to the Bandung Conference in April, 1955, when 29 nations from Africa and Asia convened in Indonesia to explicitly front a combined effort to find alternatives to Western political and economic paradigms of development, i.e. to both capitalism and communism, and in doing so first outlined a global project to delink from what were recognized as global designs and paradigms by the American and Soviet blocs during the Cold War era.

Hence, right from the outset, it is important to note that not only was there an epistemic programme to delink from Western knowledge systems, based on a recognition not only that, as Walter Mignolo notes, that "Western democracy and socialism are not the only two models to orient our thinking and our doing", but that modernity itself "is not an ontological unfolding of history but the hegemonic narrative of Western civilization. So, there is no need to be modern. Even better, it is urgent to delink from the dream that if you are not modern, you are out of history. Alternative or subaltern modernities claiming their right to exist, reaffirm the imperialism of Western modernity disguised as universal modernity." (Mignolo, 2011)

Hence, the central danger of continued coloniality, of Western political, economic, socio-cultural and epistemic systems fracturing the histories of the colonized and displacing their presents in the name of international development, progress, and 'becoming modern', is not merely epistemic but ontological - modernity and the modern world system, the global system of institutions that continue to dictate how things should be in the ex-colonies, are a threat because they change and have changed who we, the colonized, are. When writers like Franz Fanon write that black people modify their speech, body language, and actions to "prove the existence of a black civilization to the white world at all costs" (Fanon, 1952), what he points to is the awareness of the colonized that they exist always in relation to a colonizer - their very existence is grounded in a power difference. Projects of decoloniality are therefore double projects - the colonized must, as they attempt to delink from the modern world system and find alternatives, must also begin with questions of who they are now, what they are becoming, and what they should be. When histories have been ruptured and the link to the past is tenuous, the colonized must negotiate a new relation to the past in addition to navigating through the constantly shifting contours of the present. So before we go any further, just to underscore what I have said, decoloniality proceeds from two basic observations:

a) that we need to reimagine and produce alternative systems as we delink from present colonial systems;

b) that we need to reimagine our link to our histories and negotiate and try to answer to who and what we are in the present and could become in the future.

If we accept that the material or the artificial, i.e., the designed, plays a crucial role in determining our ontologies as different beings spread across the world, that it determines not only how we see and interpret the world but in how we define ourselves, then one begins to realise that the role that international paradigms and practices in the design disciplines have also played, and continue to play, a large role in the perpetuation of the modern world system and in colonial difference. Just as, at the Bandung Conference, a consortium of African and Asian nations were asking what alternatives to modern political and economic systems could be developed, the role of the decolonial designer becomes one of questioning the very foundations of design as practice and discipline: how does contemporary design practice perpetuate the imperatives of Western neoliberal capitalism, can it be separated or delinked from the particular paradigms and histories that ground the latter, with their roots in the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and can we then imagine different practices, perhaps even different definitions, of what it means to design?

Now, we come to an analysis of the very particular role, given the nature of the AIGA article, of the role of graphic design and visual communication vis-a-vis coloniality and culture, and the assumptions that the good folk at OCAD have made regarding the nature of coloniality.

Like Mignolo, Ramon Grosfoguel, Anibal Quijano and other scholars, while OCAD rightly identifies that part of the problem in modern design education has to do with the fact that programs prioritize "European art and design histories as the key pedagogical source over non-Western design lineages" (I would point interested parties here to Grosfoguel's Transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality (2015)), it fails to state clearly why this is a problem other than the fact that it does not a) reflect a diversity of indigenous influences in Canadian culture, and b) by relegating the visual culture of an indigenous minority group to being a object of specialized courses within a curriculum rather than allowing that visual culture to be part of the cultural production that design does in a society. This of course, also has then to do with c)the false dichotomy, first articulated by designers like Christopher Alexander in the first Design Methods movement during the 1960s, that Western designers plan and 'design' while non-Western civilizations merely imitate and produce 'craft'. 'Craft' then takes the place of curiosity and novelty in Western design education and acts as the counterpoint to 'true', methodical, problem solving oriented practices of design.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with problematizing any of these claims. However, issues become apparent in how OCAD then chooses to frame and tackle these issues. The first critique I have, of course, and this is a problem with the very nature of contemporary design practice, is in how designers see themselves, first and foremost, as problem solvers and therefore, of coloniality as a problem to be framed and solved, instead of as a condition of being modern that needs to be constantly negotiated with, and part of that condition is the role that material systems (note that I do not say specific artifacts or products but systems or totalities - just as Heidegger said that the essence of technology lies in no specific technology, the essence of coloniality lies in no specific thing it produces) play in producing specific kinds of human subjects. Trying to "solve" coloniality by producing a range of cultural artifacts without trying to change or at the very least, reimagine, the systems within which those artifacts are imagined, produced, distributed, and consumed, is like treating a severely ill person by merely alleviating their symptoms.

From a systemic perspective, therefore, instead of treating the problem of representation of indigenous perspectives as a multifaceted epistemological problem of erasure and privilege, i.e. that entire ways of seeing and knowing the world have been effectively erased from (and one could question here whether erasure is, from the perspectives of the Canadian Native Americans, a good or bad thing)that stems from the nature and structure of academic institutions today, it reduces the problem to a political problem of participation: if we could only get more Native Americans to train as designers and have them create more culturally informed artifacts, and teach more Native American visual and material culture histories, then we've insured that they can also continue to be good producers and contributors to the present system. This is like saying that racism could be solved by simply allowing more African Americans and other minorities to be given more representation and their cultural history taught in school classrooms, or that sexism could be solved by hiring more women in the workforce, and is one of the logics by which neoliberalism reproduces and perpetuates itself - by ensuring adequate representation in and contribution to its own systems of production and consumption without changing them.

If we were to go deeper though, to the ontological issue of what it means to be Native American, given that Native American history and identity was fractured by the arrival of European settlers, then the question of what contemporary Native American visual identity is as an expression of the current culture and its link to its own past comes into play and is worth problematizing, as is the question of how that identity comes to express itself and through what kinds of artifacts. Here, the nature of communication design as discipline begs to be questioned - historically, communication designers have seen themselves primarily performing in two capacities: in the sense of design as cultural production, communication design performs the task of creating symbolic systems that, among other things, reinforce a sense of continuity of cultural identity, and in the sense of its capacity to problem solve, it has the performative role of awareness building and (re)education.

As cultural production, the creation of symbols, and their role in educating the masses happens within a larger system where symbols function in sustaining an order of particular imaginaries (ways in which people perceive cultural Others, build a sense of community, construct their desires, etc.), the colonized, especially the indigenous colonized living in a land that still continues to be occupied and ruled by colonizers (as opposed to ex-colonies like India where there is no direct presence), are faced with the problem of not only which symbols to produce and perpetuate, but with the role that those symbols can play in either maintaining or challenging the popular imaginaries of the dominant system. There is a certain troubling assumption that culture is reducible to the visual and the symbolic within communication design that becomes apparent in the examples that the article gives. How are we to assume that artifacts that borrow aesthetic and symbolic sensibilities from Native American history wholesale without changing the nature of the products that it is a part of (language apps, playing cards etc.)will not perpetuate an exoticization and fetishization of the culture and produce ever more 'novelty' products for easy consumption by a primarily white market (what makes Nishology, for example, mentioned in the article, any different from Ten Thousand Villages)? Which of course, eventually leads us to more questions: from a decolonial perspectives, what should communication design be, and what should Native American communication designers be doing in relation to symbolic systems that go hand in hand with oppressive political, economic, and material systems? What role should visual culture play: why is it important for Native American designers to know visual histories, and to what end - is the past something to be recovered and repeated or is it to something to be used as part of the ground for a process of coming up with something new, given that the past cannot be retrieved and that our modern condition is one where we need to live as moderns without necessarily following the Western project of modernity? Should Native American communication designers be actively trying to maintain difference, instead of trying to normalize it?

These are not easy questions, and ones for which there are no universal answers - what will work for indigenous peoples in the Americas will not work for colonized civilizations of the East or South; what works for India will not work for Kenya or China or Indonesia (a further problematic assumption that the article makes is in conflating the 'indigenous' with 'colonized', itself a word with a problematic history and romantic\orientalist roots: "colonization has affected indigenous cultures from all over the world"). Furthermore, a politics of decolonial design that ignores deep analyses and introspection on the (deeply unequal) relationship between colonizer and colonized, that ignores both the local and global nature of colonial systems, and that assumes identity to be unproblematic, a given, is no decolonial politics at all.

There are other problems that I have with the article: for example, the way it ignores the work that design academics and practitioners alike in the ex-colonies have been doing for decades and thus displaces both the history and geography of decoloniality in design - the majority of names given in the list at the end of the article are white or from prominent institutions in the Western\Northern sphere (thus also maintaining the colonial illusion that whatever meaningful work on decoloniality has happened in Western institutions). Furthermore, it misrepresents the nature of the recent debates on decoloniality that have been happening at DRS and other forums such as the design PhD lists. Far from being "fertile grounds for the discussion of decolonization in education and within the greater design community". platforms like DRS were harrowing and frustrating experiences for the designers involved in raising crucial questions. My colleagues in the Decolonizing Design platform were at the heart of very abrasive, in some cases abusive, exchanges at the hands of mainstream academics - in fact, we created the Decolonising Design manifesto and platform in response to DRS ( www.decolonisingdesign.com). The article thus misrepresents even the recent history of decoloniality and design - whether this is through ignorance or oversight or deliberate is up for questioning.

In sum though, I think I am not alone in saying that we who have been and are involved in working through questions of what it means to live and act in global systems that limit our agency, that constrain, deny, and oppress us, refuse to see decoloniality become just another buzzword, another thing to check off in a list. Too much is at stake, and when easy explanations and 'solutions' are offered for things like culture, race, gender etc., by turning them into empty signifiers and divesting them of their critical agency, design becomes not only shallow and reductive but actively dangerous.

References:

Alexander, Christopher. Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Vol. 5. Harvard University Press, 1964.

Fanon, Frantz. Black skin, white masks. Grove press, 2008 (orig. 1952).

Grosfoguel, Ramón. "Transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality." Nous 13 (2015): 09.

Mignolo, Walter. "The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference." The South Atlantic Quarterly 101, no. 1 (2002): 57-96.

Mignolo, Walter D. "Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: on (de) coloniality, border thinking and epistemic disobedience." Postcolonial studies 14, no. 3 (2011): 273-283.

The writer is a PhD candidate in Design Studies at Carnegie Mellon University who works at the intersection of theories of the designed artificial and cultural difference, ideas of immunology and excess, and South Asian contexts and histories. He is also a part of the Decolonizing Design platform (http://www.decolonisingdesign.com/).

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The Work of Design in the Age of Cultural Simulation, or, Decoloniality as Empty Signifier in...

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Recently AIGA just published an article on OCAD's efforts to create what they are calling a curriculum with a decolonial agenda. What's particularly interesting is that the article has been pitched...

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17 Facts & Statistics about the Arabic Language - Industry Arabic

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Let's imagine an alternate universe where Arabs had invented the printing press, led the global information technology revolution and were the first to develop and export digital fonts to the rest of the world.

The hypothetical world's leading Arabic type foundry has now taken upon itself the responsibility of elevating the standards of global typography. I, as the head of the Arabic Type Design team, was tasked to launch and supervise our non-Arabic Type department. But, to our dismay, our executive decision to create a reductive binary distinction of the world's linguistic diversity and cultural polyvalence has been met with harsh criticism, especially by non-Arabs.

For those who are familiar with the post-structuralist critique of structural linguistics and the postcolonial theory of identity construction, you can probably see where I'm headed. But for those unfamiliar with such concepts and terms, perhaps by virtue of not having experienced first-hand the complexities of mixed identities and multilingualism, it is important to understand that the discussion around binary opposites has been a decades-long debate about the structure of language, and it continues to be of crucial importance to identity construction in a globalised world. But to properly examine the imaginary criticism I mentioned earlier, I will first briefly explain the post-structuralist critique.

Language is a constructed symbolic system whereby each term gains its meaning not independently but rather by its mutual and interdependent relation to other terms within that structure. "Up" is understood as an upward direction in relation to the word "down". Structuralist theorists extended this idea from Linguistics to Anthropology to examine the underlying structure of culture, examining how people, across different cultures, have a tendency to make sense of the world and their identity through interdependent binaries, "us" and "them". But, it wasn't long before the post-structuralists and post-modernists highlighted the problematics of binary opposites, a reductive set of two terms that encapsulates the cultural biases of a central element versus a decentralised other.

To go back to my imaginary universe, it follows then that the binary Arabic / non-Arabic within the structure of Type Design, for example, is a logocentric view that privileges the Arabic script. It is a distinction that denotes a power imbalance and imposes a violent hierarchy: "Arabic" at the centre and everything else, "non-Arabic", in the periphery. By using these terms, we have thus positively defined Arabic typefaces by "othering"the world's multitude of scripts, which have now been reduced to a homogeneous group that knows itself negatively as the "not other".

What I have put forth so far is nothing new. These issues have been highlighted by scholars and theorists such as Edward Said, Jacques Derrida and Homi K. Bhabha, among many others - I believe everyone in the field of communications would benefit from exploring these theories further (post/structuralism, post/modernism, post/colonialism). Binary opposites are a reductive, naive, and dangerous attempt from our part to make sense of the chaotic world we live in, and they reflect one point of view, which is often the view of those in power.

Let's stop imagining now and look at the structure of the Type Design industry, informally and inadvertently defined by a narrow set of parameters: Latin and non-Latin. This classification implies a world where the Latin script has spearheaded the development of written communication and is thus in a privileged position to call everything else "non-Latin". Just like Arabic/non-Arabic or West/East, the Latin/non-Latin binary is as problematic and politically charged and should be equally scrutinised. There is no right or wrong (you can tell by now I don't like binaries) just like there is no absolute Truth but rather a set of cultural discourses that we take for granted and accept as normal, saying to ourselves in a conciliatory tone " it's just the way the world is". Nothing is normal about language or culture. We constructed them and thus they hold our biased point of view - and who isn't exempt from cultural biases? The aim here is not to vilify the centre of such binaries but to critically see the fallacies of such structures, especially as we continue to inadvertently use unexamined terms.

In designating smoking and non-smoking areas, for example, the latter's definition is reduced to one aspect: it's the area where you cannot smoke. You can scream, dance, or jump around naked, but all these "positive" activities are of no value now that we have come to see this space as a negation, the absence of the central action of smoking. By the same token, is it fair then to expect that "non-Latin" typefaces accept their assigned definition as a group of scripts that exist only in relation to another central script? If it's bizarre to answer the question " What do you do?" by saying " I design fonts that are not Latin", it's equally bizarre to refer to a set of one, hundreds, or thousands of scripts asnon-Latin, non-Arabic, or non-whatever.

One can argue that the industry's current script classification speaks of our shortcoming to discover common traits among scripts, besides the obvious fact that they're not Latin. Indeed, script and font classification is a conversation we all need to actively and critically engage in. But will all designers have an equal say in this conversation?

As I was writing this article, I couldn't help but notice the irony of how typefaces are the visual representation of language, and how we, type designers, have fallen into the same trap of structural linguistics and binary opposition, naively denying the power that language has in shaping our subjective reality. The double irony here is that the practice of type design further echoes the power dynamic of the Latin/non-Latin binary, especially if we look into who commissions, funds and designs typefaces that are labelled "non-Latin".

But most ironically, I realised that I only mustered the confidence to raise this issue after my socio-economic position had been raised to a "first-world" British citizen, after I had long debated with myself Gayatri Spivak's question " Can the subaltern speak? ". It is not surprising that many "non-Latin" type designers, the subalterns, are hesitant about publicly raising such pertinent concerns because of our peripheral position within the Latin-centric industry, accompanied by our fear of being professionally accepted. We opt instead to reserve much of our energy to understanding our social, economic and political subjectivity in an imbalanced power structure, and to reconciling our cultural identity and practice with our subconscious subordination to a higher standard set by our English education as we try to make a decent living out of a vocation we're genuinely passionate about.

And so the question remains, do all designers have an equal say?

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Let's imagine an alternate universe where Arabs had invented the printing press, led the global information technology revolution and were the first to develop and export digital fonts to the rest of...

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Gender&race stereotypes in disney animation films

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The first time children usually see is at a young age, when their mind is most impressionable. If they haven't had exposure to Arabs, this movie becomes their definition of what an Arab is; making them automatically assume whatever happens in the movie must be how Arabs truly are. This would be fine if the movie spoke truly of Arabs and didn't focus on their stereotypes; but sadly, Disney pulls out a long list of stereotypes of Arab culture. For example, Jasmine's clothing is extremely revealing compared to cultural and historic norms, and the women in the movie are all portrayed as sexy and exotic dancers, making children take these stereotypes and create a prejudice of Arabs.

It was very interesting to re-watch this movie and pick up on so many things that I didn't notice when I was younger. For instance, the bad characters have a darker complexion than the good characters do. The movie hits on all the stereotypes that are given to Arabs; all they do is ride camels, watch scantily clad women dance and wear turbans. The movie also touches on the "barbaric" nature of Arabs. It shows how the punishment for stealing is to cut the thief's hand off. The original lyrics of the opening song, "Arabian Nights," actually included the lines "I come from a land, from a faraway place, where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/! It's barbaric, but hey, it is home." These words were changed in 1993 after being deemed racist.

The movie deems the Middle East as a place that should be avoided. The opening song calls the city barbaric and the name of the city, Aghrabah, in English means "very strange". I also found that the movie heavily portrays the stereotype of eroticized women, with dancing women in very little clothes in many of the scenes. The women are seen as oppressed, not heard. This actually isn't true anymore; they now are allowed to vote and even hold jobs. This movie sets a wrong image of the Arabs and sadly children are learning this image through it. Below are charts of all of the stereotypes I found of Arabs throughout

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Aladdin: Arabs are erotic, barbaric and ignorant

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The first time children usually see Aladdin is at a young age, when their mind is most impressionable. If they haven't had exposure to Arabs, this movie becomes their definition of what an Arab...

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Nomadic Traces: Journeys of Arabian Scripts

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Nomadic Traces: Journeys of Arabian Scripts explores the role that scripts have played in defining and preserving the cultural identity of past and present civilizations, and on the migrational and transformative nature of writing, and its ability to freely cross borders and cult