illustrations featured in arabesque 2

The lifesized illustrations I made at OrientationLab will be featured in Arabesque 2: graphic design from the arab world and persia, by Gestalten. Even though I'm not a designer from those regions, I am greatly inspired by the arabic and persian visual culture, and that shone through enough for the editors to include me in the edition. Edited by Ben Wittner and Sascha Thoma, available from September 2011. 

Open manifesto

I'm really happy to have the opportunity to publish a series of essays on my cross-cultural (mis)adventures in Open Manifesto. Over the years I've travelled a bit for projects abroad, and the experiences left me feeling ignorant on a good day, and downright imperialistic on a bad one. Editor Kevin Finn has given me the freedom to reflect. Have a look at 'Sinners and saints' on my experience working and living in Mali for three months. 

the world according to lava

Hans Wolbers and I are guest-editors on behalf of Lava for CREATIE this October. We dedicated the entire issue to design outside the West. There are a lot of people out there who think that design from the rest of the world is "ok, but not up to our standards yet". We couldn't disagree more. So we put talent from Taiwan, China, India, South-Africa, Tunisia, Iran and Brazil in the spotlight. Be inspired! CREATIE is only available to subscribers, but there's a preview of the mag in pdf and an online extension.

Homa says yes

We asked the awesome Iranian designer Homa Delvary to design a poster especially for Lava's guest-editorship of CREATIE magazine. And she said yes! 

Going east

OrientationLab designed the Arabic version of Spanish retail brand Desigual. It is theoretically impossible to transfer the Euroepan concept of 'neutral' type to Arabic typographic design, but consistancy was imperative. The new logotype will be implemented on the Middle Eastern stores at the end of 2011. 

Happy new year

To celebrate the persian new year (Nowruz) on the 21st of March, I created two lifesize illustrations with colleague Reza Abedini at OrientationLab.

views on the west

From the 17th until the 20th of March, Theater Zeebelt in The Hague presents the 'Views on the West' festival. On the 20th, I will interview Rajesh Dahiya -creative director of Indian design agency CoDesign- on the project, the power of stereotypes and the (im)possibilities of nationbranding.

Visualising Issues in Pharmacy

The Visualising Issues in Pharmacy (VIP) project is the first fully online international education initiative designed by the Omnium Project to link students and teachers in pharmacy and graphic design departments from universities and colleges around the world.

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