Asil

Al-Qalam School for Arabic Calligraphy has cooperated for a year with Tarek Atrissi Design to host the second phase of Asil, in conjunction with the selection of Cairo as the capital of Islamic culture 2020. This project focuses on reconnecting the Arabic Calligraphy with its roots, yet moving it towards the age of digitization. This is achieved through several main areas: Research, Education, Design, and production.

Workshops in Egypt (beginner):

Several workshops were given by international experts with the goal of developing the skills of Egyptian typographers and exposing them to experimental approaches with the guidance of professional experts. These workshops covered the basic educational and practical framework that would enable the designers to work on the design phase. Those workshops focused on Arabic typeface design, and the shift from the traditional calligraphic practice to the digital design and developments of Arabic fonts the incorporation of calligraphic styles within the contemporary graphic experimental design. This phase was mainly based on exchanging culture and knowledge between both the Egyptian and international experts. 

Workshops in Holland (advanced):

The basic workshops in Cairo allowed to identify the talents, with less access to the exclusive and often unaffordable high education that provides the elite design education in Egypt, to be selected to participate in the workshops in Holland. These workshops provided the Egyptian designers with the opportunity to work on typeface design projects with the support of professionals and academics who is working successfully with Arabic and Latin typography in Holland. Specific projects in digital typography have been developed based on briefs resulting from the previous phases and with the support of international experts.