Ash Wadi, Sama Beydoun, Rabab Charafeddine, Norma Zoghbi and Tatiana Bohsali (Graphic Design, BFA'2019), the five nominees for the 2019
Areen Awards, were featured in
The Talent Issue of
ArabAd magazine - the first and oldest advertising and communications magazine catering to the MENA region. The final year projects of these MSFEA students were showcased to highlight the standard of design expressions and thinking among local readers and the industry's communication professionals.
“ArabAd is showcasing some of the best and most distinguished end-of-year projects presented by some of the most promising rising talents in Graphic Design, Advertising, Illustration, Digital Media, Photography, and Animation from AUST, USEK, AUB, Antonine University and ALBA. Our choices are drawn from nominations made by their professors and other industry professionals."
Here are brief descriptions of the featured projects:
Ash Wadi – Ladies, Gentlemen, and Everyone in BetweenA short essay film attempting to formally combine day-to-day props and itineraries in Beirut. These elements, whether formally gendered or transformed into something that is, all become part of a personal narrative where I am made aware of my gender. This experiment challenges the notion of the binary as I navigate through the city as both male, female and neither. Sama Beydoun – Beirut Street MuseumThe Beirut Street Museum (BSM) offers a cultural experience that takes the visitor on a walk on the street. The BSM's goal is to enhance cultural sensitivity in regard to vernacular manifestations that earn value in regard to usefulness, production, and material. This urban interest directed outward rather than inward challenges the notions of ownership, exclusivity, elitism and contextualization typically involved in museology.
Rabab Charafeddine – Snoubar Beirut (Bespoke Typeface)By exploring the specificities of formal and informal style in Arabic calligraphy, reflected into formal and informal varieties in Arabic speech, this text typeface intended for publication uses works in a system tailored for 'Snoubar Beirut' to use their written form of colloquial Arabic along with formal Arabic.Norma Zoghbi – Jaree2: A secular Arabic typefaceThrough conducted research, Ruq'ah's secularism and its undeniable social status as a people's script, apart from religious sects and political barriers, was proven. This project's objective aims to explore the notion of type design as a social ideology by designing a Protest Arabic Typeface inspired from Ruq'ah Script. It will prevail the modern-day aesthetics while adequately remaining aware of the calligraphic origin.Tatiana Bohsali – A Currency for the Arab WorldA utopian undertaking, initiating the creation of a common currency to be used by all countries of the Arab World. Through a response to the conventions of money design set by a framework of formality, the project aims to create a hybrid system celebrating the region's common threads while conserving each nation's particularities and cultural heritage.