Khatt Chronicles in Conversation with Sarah Saroufim

Khatt Chronicles in Conversation with Sarah Saroufim

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

February 20, 2026 · 38 min · Season 4 · Episode 12

About this episode

Yasmine Nachabe Taan interviews Sarah Saroufim about her journey in illustration and design.

Yasmine Nachabe Taan interviews American-Lebanese illustrator and designer Sarah Saroufim. They start the conversation by taking us through her educational journey first in graphic design at the American University of Beirut (AUB), and how this led to her interest in illustration; then to her postgraduate studies in product design at Parsons School of Design in New York. Sarah discusses candidly her interests, struggles and doubts. She shares the fact that she has been interested in art and passionate about drawing since high school, but not until the end of her college years did she finally feel better at it and found her own voice in illustration. She discusses her creative process and how she needs the time to experiment and plan extensively before starting her drawings. She also discusses the dot-pattern illustrations and Arabic lettering that she created for a book published by Snoubar Bayrout Bookshop, entitled Dammeh [hug], among other meaningful projects she enjoyed working on. She elaborates on her mainly black and white color palette, and her fascination with drawing patterns using her ballpoint pen that she always carried with her. Recently she started integrating…

People in this episode

Host: Yasmine Nachabe Taan

Guest: Sarah Saroufim

Topics covered

  • illustration
  • design
  • creative process
  • education
  • art

Keywords

  • illustration
  • graphic design
  • American University of Beirut
  • Parsons School of Design
  • creative process
  • art

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: American University of Beirut, Parsons School of Design, Snoubar Bayrout Bookshop

Books & works: Dammeh [hug]

More episodes of Khatt Chronicles: Stories on Design from the Arab World

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Khatt Chronicles: Stories on Design from the Arab World podcast page.