40MUSTAQEL

Nada is the founder and chief creative officer of Cairo based independent graphic design studio; 40MUSTAQEL, and the founder and publisher of ISDAR MUSTAQEL; a bilingual non-periodic publication about serious, critical, playful, and spontaneous design practices around the region.

Nada’s practice is centered around exploring Arab visual languages through diverse creative endeavors. At the heart of her craft lies an inherent interest in telling regional stories with a decolonized tongue and their adjacent visual narratives.

Nada's Talk

Individual and Collective Identities in Brand Design

In her talk, Nada Hesham, an Egyptian designer and founder of the Cairo-based studio 40MUSTAQEL, reflects on creating within a city like Cairo, unpacking the friction between her formal German/Swiss design training and her current practice, which heavily explores the role of Arabic script in shaping the region’s visual landscape. Through her journey, she examines how our environments and the cities we design within inform what we come to define as “good design.” She finally concludes that the most powerful approach to design is one rooted in an authentic sense of both individual and collective identity.