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The project
In Spring 2024, I had the honor of auditing Professor Puccetti's class 'Types of Art' and attend workshops led by Wissam Shawkat, an Iraqi artist who created the Al Wissam calligraphy style.
Calligraphy
We studied traditional scripts and compositions until we had a moderate grasp on the forms of each letter and which rules could be pushed.
Calligraform
In the final workshop, we explored the graphic value of arabic letters beyond their anchoring in the Arab world. We played with the positive and negative spaces of each letter and created experimental signatures and logos.
"Al Emirat" is a logotype inspired by Wissam Shawkat's calligraphic expressions. While it's a practice of abstraction and a study of each letter, the design is also inspired by element's of the country's deep patriotism, most notably the geographic boundaries of the country and the cultural value of Abu Dhabi, encircled by the letter 'meem.'
My final challenge was creating a personal logo inspired by traditional arabic calligraphy and Wissam Shawkat's teachings. It is still a challenge to play with letters while maintaining the readability of a fairly structured written language (one I do not speak well enough).
