Khatt Chronicles in Conversation with Naima Ben Ayed

Khatt Chronicles in Conversation with Naima Ben Ayed

From Khatt Chronicles: Stories on Design from the Arab World by afikra

June 5, 2026 · 32 min · Season 5 · Episode 2

About this episode

Yara Khoury Nammour interviews Naïma Ben Ayed about her journey in type design and her exploration of Arabic typography.

Yara Khoury Nammour interviews French-Tunisian type and graphic designer Naïma Ben Ayed. They start the conversation discussing Naïma's serendipitous journey into type design. They discuss her postgraduate studies at École Estienne in Paris and the type design student project (initiated by the Islamic Art Department of the Louvre Museum in Paris) that introduced her to Arabic type design. This project was seminal for her career during which she was introduced to the Khatt Foundation's first "Typographic Matchmaking" project that continued to inspire her work throughout her career.Typographic Matchmaking resonated with her preoccupation with expressing her dual identity and how it was manifestated in her design work. Naima then discusses her type design work in general and her finding inspiration in North African scripts and visual culture, as well as stories in hidden archives, namely in feminist print archives from the SWANA region. Next to her commissioned projects, she conducts her own research for her personal type design projects. She elaborates on her "personal" typeface design project La Grotesque, based on the Arabic Maghribi style and translating this style to a modern…

People in this episode

Host: Yara Khoury Nammour

Guest: Naïma Ben Ayed

Topics covered

  • type design
  • Arabic typography
  • dual identity
  • North African scripts
  • feminist print archives
  • personal projects

Keywords

  • type design
  • Arabic type design
  • Khatt Foundation
  • La Grotesque
  • North African scripts
  • feminist archives
  • Typographic Matchmaking

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Khatt Foundation, École Estienne, Islamic Art Department of the Louvre Museum, SWANA

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