Since its launch three years ago, Amman Design Week has been placing the Middle Eastern capital as one of the region’s biggest visual design hubs.
Spearheaded by Jordanian Queen Rania Al Abdullah, the biannual event highlights the nation’s burgeoning design scene, proving that design is no longer a niche venture in the Arab world. The city is actually home to a slew of design studios, placing modern Arab art at the core of their work.
But Amman isn’t alone. The region is chockful of cutting-edge design studios, helmed by some of the most talented Arab graphic designers. We’ve rounded up some of our favourites.
Turbo
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The Jordanian design studio is helmed by visual designers Mothanna Hussein and Saeed Abu-Jaber, who are also the co-founders of Bethlehem’s Radio AlHara. Since launching in 2015, the Amman-based studio has developed a multidisciplinary range of services from branding and poster design to building large-scale installations and hosting pop-up shops. Film festival Reel Palestine, Lifta Volumes publication and Dubai’s Third Line Gallery are amongst their clients.
Warsheh
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Another one of Hussein’s ventures is graphic design collective Warsheh. Alongside designer Hadi Alaeddin, the duo specializes in branding, logo making, and poster design.
Studio Safar
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The Beirut-based design and art direction agency is founded by creative directors Maya Moumné and Hatem Imam, the duo behind independent magazine Journal Safar. The studio works with publications, exhibitions, sets, album artwork, and websites. The design studio partnered up with Boiler Room to create a limited-edition T-Shirt to raise funds for artists affected by the Beirut blast last August. They also worked on prints for Jameel Arts Centre‘s ‘Crude’ exhibition, as well as posters for Red Sea Film Festival.
Tarek Atrissi Design
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The brainchild of Lebanese-Dutch designer Tarek Atrissi does branding and bilingual typography, cross cultural graphic design and Arabic type design. Their clients include Apple, The V&A museum in London, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar and more.
Zero
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Whether it’s 3D, Arabic typography or futuristic designs, Zero does it all. Helmed by Jeddah-based graphic designer Alaa Tameem and Amman-based designer Tariq Yosef, the studio creates experimental posters with different techniques and styles.
Twothirds Design Bureau
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Twothirds Design Bureau is a research-based design studio established in 2016 by Lujain Abulfaraj and Sara Al Ari, dedicated to building timeless designs. They’ve worked for Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture on a visual identity for AlBalad district. They also developed the branding of Al Obour exhibition as part of 21,39 Jeddah Art in 2019.
Abjad Type Foundry
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Few do Arabic typography like Abjad. The brainchild of multidisciplinary designer Ali Almasri focuses on Arabic and Latin scripts, creating unique and innovative Arabic typefaces.
Main image courtesy of Turbo Design Studio
