Arabesque: Graphic Design from the Arab World & Persia

The German graphic design duo Ben Wittner and Sascha Thoma, founders of eps51 graphic design studio, been working very hard on compiling a solid showcase of the Graphic Design from the Arab World as well as Persia (Iran) under a book titled Arabesque: Graphic Design from the Arab World and Persia.

The book looks at different fields; Calligraphy, Illustration, Poster Design, Type Manipulation, Type Design, Logos and much more. Within the pages many interviews with different artists featured, like; Mouneer El Shaarani, George Azmy, Nadine Chahine, Wissam Shawkat and more.

Here are few previews of the book, from different sections:

“Calligraphical” section - work featured: Wissam Shawkat & Diana Hawatmeh

Susan Hefuna - Nja Mahdaoui

“Pictural” section with featured work of George Azmy

Kareem Lotfy - Komraids

Ibrahim Eslam - Zena El-Khalil

“Pictural Type” section - with featured work of Mehdi Saeedi

Shahrazad Changalvaee

“Type Design” section - with featured work by Mohammed Shennawy

Yanone / Underware - Yara Khoury / Himmelbraun

“Logotypes” section featuring a number of different logos by different designers

“Graphical” section - featured work by Peyman Pourhosein

Reem Naeim - Ganzeer - Richard Niessen

The book comes with free CD includes Talib Type
Developed by eps51 - a Latin type derived from Arabic characters

• Visit Arabesque’s Website
• eps51 graphic design studio website
• Talib Type website
• Book’s page on Die Gestalten (Available for Purchase)
• Purchase book through Amazon or Amazon UK

The Splendor of Arabic Calligraphy - Workshop

Syrian Graphic Designer, Calligrapher and Type developer Hussein Alazaat with the Syrian Calligrapher Saleh Nasab are carrying out a calligraphy workshop in Amman, Jordan.

The workshop has already started on the 19th yet it’s still running for more sessions up until the 10th of May. Click on the image above to enlarge for more details.

Contact Hussein at:
alazaat [at] gmail [dot] com
(+962)79-7091084

Fann 3arabi’s hiatus

Apologies for the long hiatus of Fann 3arabi that’s been for the last 3 months. Unfortunately, I personally got extremely busy with university work and to all those who don’t know yet Fann 3arabi is a one-man’s work, which is quite demanding. I’m personally not done, I still got exams to go but I will try to update Fann 3arabi whenever I get the chance to.

Many exciting posts will be coming, as well as new artists to be featured and much more. Please stay tuned :)

Manar Al Muftah

Manar Al Muftah is our 2nd artist to be featured as part of Fann 3arabi for the Rising. Manar doesn’t currently have an online portfolio so this post will include as much as possible of Manar’s work as she supplied - in addition to her customised header for Fann 3arabi. Manar is a Qatari artist that graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar with a Bachelors Fine Art degree in Graphic Design.

Manar describes her first experience with printing to lack texture and ‘handmade’ feeling to it, so she experimented in creating a collage from other printed elements as she glued them to the original poster and since then she realised how much she values the handmade work. Afterwards, she found her other passion which was Arabic calligraphy. She said to become fascinated by the shapes of Arabic letters. With her previous experience in creating collages and such, she decided to carry out a project showing textures that represent historical aspects of those letters.

Manar spent months on that project, meanwhile she developed her own printing techniques that enriched her work and gave the letters a sophisticated vintage old look. After those four months, her handmade book was done, titled Alefba. Manar worked out her experience in handmade books to produce her senior portfolio and she is expected to be having an exhibition in September 2008 about the Arabic alphabets.

Here is a collection of her work:

Photos of Her book:

Photos of her Senior Profile:

Here’s a brief written by Manar about her exhibition:

 

“TALISMAN

Arabic is deeply rooted in my repository of memories. I always remember learning the Arabic alphabet when I was a child. This alphabet was more than a collection of letters. The curviness and the smoothness of the many letters together wove a story in my child’s mind. Raa was a girl’s braid, and lam was my dad’s fishing hook.

We, as native Arabic speakers, rarely pay attention to our Arabic alphabet. Because we were born to speak and write in Arabic, we never examined the forms and shapes of those letters. My own perception of letters has changed tremendously. I don’t see letters as figures anymore.

Three years ago, I never thought about the letter nuun. Today, nuun is more than a letter. It is a crescent, a bowl of sadness, a bag of flour, and my lucky talisman!
Each letter has its own story; each articulates a rhythmic music, and each has an identity: some have one dot, while others have two, and one single letter has three dots: thaa. And each of the three dots is different from the other!

We are used to looking at joined letters, which form words. But we hardly ever see separate letters set individually. When we see faa by itself, it helps our eyes to move freely from the dot to the body forming an image in the mind. One will see a boat. While the other will see a lucky charm! Each letter is unique and has a visual impact on us.

Each has a magical power!

Calligraphy is considered one of the richest resources of many artists from the Arab world. Today, many contemporary artworks differ from one artist to another, but no Arab artist can completely deny the influence of calligraphy. The Arabic alphabet provides me with a variety of potentials to express the artistic identity of Arabs. My work seeks not to present the technicality, but to honor the world of the alphabets. I tried to give each letter the value it deserves, and expose it to the contemporary world. My artwork is very intimate! Each piece is part of me! Each is a precious memory of my childhood, and each is a lucky charm!”

• Manar’s Profile on Khatt
• Visit Manar’s feature on GEOTYPOGRAFIKA
• Download Manar’s Resume Here (PDF, 1.23 MB)

Fann 3arabi is tootified

is now listed among the new added blogs on toot: The Arab Blog Network. It is exciting news, as toot readers will be able to keep up with the latest Fann 3arabi posts and good to be part of possibly the biggest Arab blog network on the net.

It’s fruitfully delicious, thanks toot team (Ahmad and Roba) for the add :)

Safwan Dahoul

One of Safwan Dahoul’s Rêve series, 2002

Safwan Dahoul is yet another artist to be featured from the artists of Ayyam Gallery in Syria. Born in Hamah, 1961 and graduated in 1985 from the Fine Arts faculty of Damascus. More than 10 years later he got a doctorate in Plastic Arts from Belguim. His artworks mainly consist of a series under the title “Reve” or “Rêve” which is French for “Dream”. The series depicts females and occasionally males in an interesting form, showing vulnerability and spirtuality.

Four artworks from the Reve series, newer than the top one (acrylic on canvas)

With perfectly fine lines, clean cut figures, mysterious pretty faces, dark backgrounds, intriguing postures and body forms, Dahoul’s work got attention to have exhibitions internationally as he had a solo exhibition at the European Parliament in Brussels. His artworks are auctioned in the biggest auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

• Ayyam Gallery has Dahoul as one of it’s artists
• Visit Safwan Dahoul’s website (incomplete)
• Safwan Dahoul’s work on artnet
• Kozah Gallery features Dahoul as one of it’s artists

fann3arabi.com

can be finally accessed from www.fann3arabi.com

The webpage will redirect you to this blog, as moving the blog to the server is still under process so bare with us.
So fix your bookmarks, and if you’re planning to tell people about Fann 3arabi just give them the website. Thanks to all the visitors and supporters, very much appreciated.

Diana Hawatmeh

Diana Hawatmeh is the first artist/graphic designer to be featured as part of Fann 3arabi’s campaign “Fann 3arabi for the Rising” - where budding artists, graphic designers, illustrators and so on are featured with their customisation to Fann 3arabi’s header.

Diana Hawatmeh, a Jordanian graphic designer based in Dubai and been living there for most of her life. She graduated from American University of Sharjah with a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication. Whilst Diana’s study for the degree and attending conferences and workshops, exploring all sorts of different fields within Graphic Design, she found her utter fascination; Typography. As she claims, her most favourite thing to do is to unconsciously destruct, build, overlap, clutter, spread and play around with type of all shapes and colours. Whether it’s an absolutely random quote in Arabic, or a sentence that takes you a while to figure out - it’s all there.

Digital Arabic Typography experiment

She is inspired by the Typographic work in Netherlands and Europe, Jordan and it’s urban culture, a Nonsense book by Edward Lear, Arabic letters & calligraphy, Iranian graphic design and much more. Diana has worked with a number of companies, and done high profile work whether as brand identiy and more. She worked with Emaar, Masterfoods, Jumeira Beach Magazine, Fashionista and lately worked along with Wissam Shawkat on wall graphics for the Dubai International Financial Centre.

Wall graphics of the DIFC, by Wissam Shawkat and Diana Hawatmeh

Diana is also a blogger, where she features artists from all over the globe - even some personal friends of hers from university and such. She is currently working independently as a freelance graphic designer. You can see Diana’s customised header on the blog, which will last a month or more, until the next feature where a new artist provides a customised header.

• Visit Diana’s Website
• Diana’s Blog: DH
• Diana on Khatt

Fann 3arabi for the Rising

In order to support the budding artists, especially the ones I’m on personal knowledge of, Fann 3arabi will feature them on a monthly basis and this will be accompanied with a customised header by the artist himself/herself.

So keep a close eye on the blog, it will be very soon updated with the first contributor.

Omar Bilbeisi @ Zara Gallery

Omar Bilbeisi’s art exhibition @ Zara Gallery, Amman - Jordan. An open invitation to the opening of the exhibition which is on Monday, December 3rd 2007 at 6:00 pm.

For more information, call +962-6-4651433 or visit the website: http://www.zaragallery.org/zaragallery/index.htm