QALAM
Master's Thesis Project
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Growing up in Kuwait, Arabic lived on street signs, newspapers, packaging, and storefronts. Studying graphic design later made its structure clearer: direction, connections, spacing, rhythm. A system with its own logic.
In the West, I kept meeting designers who wanted to work with Arabic carefully. Qalam grew out of that gap: a digital guide to Arabic type and the thinking behind it.
THE PROBLEM
The knowledge about Arabic typography is already out there, in books, archives, foundries, and scholarship. What’s harder to find is a way in. Most practicing designers need enough orientation to make a bilingual identity, publication, package, or interface with care.
Arabic is still often approached as ornament. For more than 400 million people, it shapes everyday reading, culture, and identity. When that system is mishandled, the cost shows up in clarity, trust, and respect.
PROCESS
The work moved from a thesis digest of early ideas, to a schoolbook-inspired encyclopedia, then a denser editorial version, and finally a character-led interactive system. Across those shifts, the same instincts held: one idea at a time, image before explanation, system before decoration.
Alongside the product, a 212-page thesis book holds the research behind Qalam. It traces the history of type and of Arabic type in particular, from Gutenberg and early printing through metal, phototype, and the shift to digital fonts.
From there it moves into the making of the guide: the questions that shaped it, the paths tried and set aside, and the decisions that turned research into a system designers can use.
PRODUCT
The live guide is at qalam.design. Categories lead into focused entries, related ideas, and a Play section built around noticing: recognition, comparison, observation.
Entries link out to related ideas, so exploring stays non-linear rather than a straight read, and the deeper research sits one layer down — there when you want it, out of the way when you don't.
INTERFACE, EXPERIENCE & CHARACTER DESIGN
Because the audience often learns faster from images than from dense text, the interface stays visual and quiet. Soft marks, a cream ground, and generous space set the tone before any reading begins, so the material feels approachable rather than academic.
Salem, Hala, and Simsim run through it as quiet guides, drawn in the spirit of vintage schoolbook illustrations. Each carries a different kind of attention: calm observation, curiosity, and a lighter sense of play. Their forms draw on Arabic visual identity, so the cast belongs to the subject rather than borrowing familiar Western illustration habits.
Salem
OUTCOME
The result is Qalam: a live guide, a 212-page thesis book, and a cast of characters that together turn scattered knowledge into something a designer can move through. Success looks like leaving more sure of what to notice, and able to meet Arabic on its own terms.
