Shillo Stories: Jumanah Abualkhair
Date
Apr 4, 2024
A warm welcome to Jumanah, raised in Jeddah and now based in North Ontario. Jumanah's background in media, communications and marketing inspired her to explore the world of graphic design, and she graduated from Shillington last year.
Inspiring me
I can’t help but feel inspired by postage stamps and how they embody history, design, and culture all within the constraints of a small, frail piece of paper. There are so many creative stamp designs out there, but what blows my mind is how these designs have been touched by time and people—regardless of geographic location or people’s socioeconomic status.
They show a window into a forgotten past: highlights of cultural heritage, depictions of different places from all over the world, renamed and lost countries, and even records of colonized and occupied lands. There’s so much to learn from stamps and it can provide a great insight into—not just historical design, but also—the human side of history that, to this day, you can still touch.
On reflection
Lately, I’ve been going back to my roots and looking at Arabic graphic design (specifically in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where I grew up) while also reflecting on my past experience in marketing. There’s a certain creative energy flowing in the country and it is fuelled by a collective vision (vision 2030), giving brands a purpose. Marketing and design have a strong storytelling component, but I’m beginning to see that honing in on that kind of brand purpose and expressing it authentically is key—especially when shaping brand identities for communities with longevity in mind.
On that point, I’ve been eager to experiment some more with Arabic graphic design and am making a point to look strategically at future projects to determine that brand purpose and mission. I’m happy to have done some of that work in my Shillington portfolio and hope to do more of it in the future.
What's cooking?
I’m very fortunate to be working on some client projects, but those haven’t received the green light for launch just yet! While they're cooking, I’ve been learning about type design (and hoping to release my very first typeface sometime soon!)
This project is very much in the early stages, but it’s been fun to go back to pen and paper, step beyond my comfort zone, and dive into Glyphs for the first time.