Khatt Chronicles: Stories on Design from the Arab World

Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès interviews Brussels-based, Syrian-Polish designer Kinda Ghannoum. They discuss her journey into the field of design, through practical work following her graduation with a degree in architecture from the University of Damascus. Kinda shares her travails as a self-taught graphic designer and her passion for the Arabic script, lettering and typography. The conversation centers around issues of preservation of identity while saddling two nationalities, and of providing educational resources to design students in Syria and preserving Syrian design history, as well as what it means to be practicing in a diasporic context. A number of Kinda's remarkable projects are discussed starting with her seminal archival project, The Syrian Design Archive, that she set up with two friends – Sally Alassafen and Hala Al Afsaa – in 2020 during her postgraduate studies in Belgium. Kinda also discusses some of her other significant projects where cultural advocacy and collaboration was at the core. What transpires from this conversation is an image of a courageous and dedicated woman designer that breaks any stereotypes of women from the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region. Kinda's work is featured in the book "Revealing Recording Reflecting: Graphic Women from Southwest Asia and North Africa" (Amsterdam: Khatt Books, 2024).

Yara Khoury Nammour interviews London-based Lebanese designer Samar Maakaroun. They discuss at length her journey into the field of branding and lettering, her work at Pentagram studio in London and what it means to be the first Lebanese partner in the studio. They cover her independent project on lettering "29 Words for 29 Letters" – playing with meanings, writing systems, and animation, to build a playful and experimental multicultural glossary, and embracing the multiplicity and complexity that comes from thinking in and working with two languages, and in a diasporic context. Samar discusses a special book project for the charity SkatePal and how the timing of the project lent it a different and more poignant political urgency. The discussion ends with a conversation about AI and how it can be supportive of designers' work, but also how it can be misused.

In this episode of Khatt Chronicles, Roshanak Keyghobadi interviews UK-based Iranian type designer and researcher Sahar Afshar. They discuss Sahar's journey into the field of type design, the challenges she faced along the way, and her views on the responsibility of designing a typeface. They discuss some of Sahar's main and award-winning type projects. They touch upon specific topics of technology and how it might facilitate certain tedious tasks and speed up the design process. They also unpack the issue of the exclusion of women from the Iranian Graphic design history and the broader issue of the representation of women in the type design field at large. They end the conversation on a positive note highlighting the active role that the younger generation are taking in publishing and uncovering the professional engagement of women in graphic design.

In this episode of Khatt Chronicles, Yara Khoury Nammour interviews France-based Iranian educator and independent type designer Sina Fakour. They discuss his design teaching and the paths one can take as a graphic designer. They unpack his ideas on designing thinking, research, creative coding, type design, publication design, and a range of other graphic design practices. They zoom in on his type design process, how he develops his concepts, his interest in multiscript typeface design, and how he introduces this to design students in France. They discuss his postgraduate research work on the Linear Elamite script at the Atelier National de Recherches Typographique (ANRT) in Nancy, France. Finally, we learn about his personal ambitions and publishing desires and the struggles of balancing all aspects of working as an independent designer.

In this episode of Khatt Chronicles, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès interviews Iranian designer Aria Kasaei, who co-founded Studio Kargah with his classmate and friend Peyman Pourhossein. They discuss his journey into the field of graphic design and the cultural engagement from Studio Kargah's humble beginnings in a basement in Tehran to its present day status, and the recent setting up of a satellite studio in Paris. Together, they discuss the archiving, exhibiting and publishing on design history in Iran and the region, and reiterate the importance of collaboration on such projects between designers and institutions in the region. They address the important role that women designers and younger generations are playing in Studio Kargah as well the design scene in the region, and finally highlight some of Studio Kargah's projects and collaborations with various type designers and cultural activists in Iran and the diaspora.

In this episode of Khatt Chronicles, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès interviews Iranian type designer and researcher Amir Mahdi Moslehi. They discuss his journey into calligraphy and type design. Moslehi discusses his extensive research into #Persian calligraphic and #script heritage, namely Nastaaliq and Manuscript Pahlevi. The discussion touches upon technologies and script-specific #design issues, and dives deeply into a number of Moslehi's award-winning type design projects.

In this episode of the Khatt Chronicles podcast, Yasmine Nachabe Taan interviews Dubai-based Egyptian illustrator and comics artist Nora Zeid. They discuss her journey into the field of graphic novels and comics through studying visual communication. The conversation addresses the importance of memory, heritage, personal narratives, and visual storytelling. Zooming in on her project "Cairo Illustrated", they discuss the role of illustration in reviving heritage and reconnecting with one's culture. They speak of the importance of capturing the city as it's being transformed and how narrative illustration can be a means to preserve architectural heritage and popular neighborhoods. They discuss her choice of only using black and white in her graphic illustrations to best capture the complex details of Cairo's city scenes. They also discuss her choice to use her grandmother's stories and neighborhood as a starting point for her novel which renders the narrative more intimate, peaceful, and personal. They end the conversation with a discussion about her future projects and possible new graphic novels about other Arab cities.

Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès interviews Dubai-based Iraqi calligrapher and designer Wissam Shawkat. They discuss his journey into calligraphy and graphic design starting from his teenage years as a student in Iraq to his move to Dubai – where both his calligraphy and graphic design career crystallized. The conversation addresses the importance of innovation in calligraphy and its relation to contemporary graphic design practice.