Published date: 3 February 2021 10:30 UTC | Last update: 1 week 6 days ago
I had never given much thought to Cairo’s street signs. I liked them, certainly - subconsciously I found a certain charm to their white-on-blue calligraphy and often-stunted English transliterations - but I had never really stopped to notice them.
It wasn’t until designers and scholars Bahia Shehab and Haytham Nawar were presenting their new book
A History of Arab Graphic Design, that I learned to do a double-take to their everyday presence.
Sayed Ibrahim, known as the dean of Arabic calligraphy, was a pioneer of the early 20th century, and a graphic designer whose work precedes the term graphic design . In addition to creating the current logo for Al Ahram Newspaper and logotypes for giants such as Om Kulthoum, former president Gamal Abdel Nasser and Prince of Poets Ahmed Shawqi, Ibrahim’s lettering still lines Cairene streets today.