Home / ATypI Copenhagen 2025
Date Friday, April 25th 2025
Venue Royal Danish Academy / Stage One

From Manuscript to Modern Design: Visual Synonyms Initiative and the Evolution of Arabic Calligraphy

Antoine Abi Aad 2025 Antoine Abi Aad

Arabic calligraphy symbolizes cultural identity, bridging artistic traditions with contemporary visual communications. How can design students reinterpret Arabic calligraphic manuscripts to create lettering compositions that connect heritage with innovation? This question drives Visual Synonyms, a project that reimagines Arabic calligraphy as a platform for contemporary creativity.

Initiated at Lebanese University by two typography professors Antoine Abi Aad and Rana Abou Rjeily, Visual Synonyms tasked students to analyze Arabic calligraphy elements, including structures, letter placement, ligatures, rhythms in ascenders, alternative use of letterforms, and harmonies between black and white, reinterpreting these into modern typographic compositions. Heritage acts as a conduit to modernity, where typographic compositions emerge as Visual Synonyms of original inspirations.

Visual Synonyms evolved from an academic initiative to local exhibitions, gaining international recognition with exhibitions in India and Korea. Following Abi Aad’s move to the UAE, the project expanded through typography courses at Zayed University in Dubai. The Visual Synonyms masterclass at the Misk Art Week in Riyadh validated its applicability in other countries and underscored the significance of Arabic calligraphy as a source of artistic inspiration. The cross-cultural relevance of Visual Synonyms was further emphasized at exhibitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, and China, showing that Arabic calligraphy communicates to youth through modern visual language. The works of Zayed University students, exhibited in Typoday 2023 in Varanasi and the Festival of Sikka in Dubai in 2024 and 2025, endorsed the versatility of Arabic calligraphic art in communicating to diverse audiences and reflected its adaptability in addressing modern design challenges while preserving cultural roots.

By integrating traditional scribing into contemporary pedagogy and artistic practice, Visual Synonyms foster dialogue between the past, present, and future, offering a platform for the public to engage with Arabic calligraphy in inventive reinterpretations and demonstrating the enduring relevance of this cultural heritage in contemporary contexts.

Antoine Abi Aad 2025
Speaker

Antoine Abi Aad

Antoine Abi Aad is a committed educator, visual communicator, and researcher. He holds a Ph.D. and MA degree from the University of Tsukuba in Japan as well as a DES from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in Lebanon. Universidade de Brasilia in Brazil, Hong Kong Design Institute, IIT Bombay in India, Greenside Design Centre in Johannesburg, Russia Institute of Business and Design, Nara University of Education in Japan, École Supérieure des Arts Visuels in Morocco, Boston University, and Yale University in New Haven were some of the universities that requested guest lectures and workshops.

Antoine’s resume included 65 exhibitions in 20 countries and 36 cities. Since 2005, he has impacted the lives of 2279 students by sharing his skills through 67 workshops and 127 courses with 57 universities and academic institutions in 23 different countries.

Antoine’s passion for letters, including typography, calligraphy, and handwriting, stems from his persistent dedication to research and experimentation. His proficiency in a variety of scripts, such as Arabic, Latin, and Japanese, inspired him to investigate the subtleties of writing directions—downward, upward, and leftward—and how they relate to advertising, motion graphics, animation, and visual communication.

Antoine has served in a number of leadership roles during his career, including Vice-President of i-cod (previously Icograda) from 2015 to 2017, Head of the Department of Graphic Design and Visual Communication at Lebanese University, and Chairperson of Typoday Amman 2020.