The TypoLab of the Visual Communication department at HEAD – Geneve, invites you to the "Power and Politics in Arabic Type Design" conference, by Nadine Chahine, that will take place on Tuesday, May 28th 2024.

Power. Politics. Identity. Typefaces embody the unspoken messages in our words, which is why it’s more important than ever that there is plurality for the voices of the Arabic culture. Nadine’s talk will explore the theories of power in international relations and link them to the forms of power available to designers to use. This thread is then linked to the politics of Arabic type design, identity, and expression. Nadine will argue that there's a place for both the classical and the modern letterforms in contemporary language and presents her exploration of Arabic type design through key projects and milestones.

Lebanese-born, Dr. Nadine Chahine is a type designer based in Barcelona. She is an award-winning Lebanese type designer. Nadine has an MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading, UK; a PhD in legibility research from Leiden University, The Netherlands, and a Master of Studies in International Relations from Cambridge University. She has numerous awards including two Awards for Excellence in Type Design from the Type Directors Club in New York, in 2008 and 2011. Her typefaces include: Frutiger Arabic, Neue Helvetica Arabic, Univers Next Arabic, Palatino Arabic, and Koufiya. Nadine’s work has been featured in the 5th edition of Megg’s History of Graphic Design and in 2012 she was selected by Fast Company as one of its 100 Most Creative People in Business. In 2016 her work was showcased in the 4th edition of First Choice which highlights the work of the 250 top global designers. In 2015, she was selected to design and lead the Dubai Font. In 2017, Nadine was selected by Creative Review to their Creative Leaders 50. Nadine worked for Linotype and Monotype from 2005 until 2018 starting as their Arabic Specialist, and then as the UK Type Director and Legibility Expert. During her tenure, she
designed Arabic typefaces for clients such as Google, Sony, The Executive Councel of Dubai, Al-Jazeera, An-Nahar Newspaper, Etihad Airways, H&M, mbc, SKY News Arabia, and Toyota. Her most recent projects for ArabicType Ltd are for mbc Shahid, Intel, Bulgari, and Bloomberg Asharq. Since 2021 Nadine has also been the CEO of I Love Typography Ltd, a new font distribution site that supports Indie foundries, as well as its Academy which offers online courses in type design, typography, and font engineering, in a variety of different languages.