Featuring ATypI Sharjah keynote speakers Huda S. AbiFarès, Laura Meseguer, Haytham Nawar, and David Berlow as panelists, moderated by Sami De Giosa.
This moderated roundtable explores how calligraphic traditions across different cultures have shaped, informed, and been transformed by typography. Moving across historical and contemporary contexts, the discussion considers how letterforms transition between the hand, print, mechanical reproduction, and digital environments, and how these shifts affect visual language, cultural continuity, and design.
The panel approaches this relationship through different historical and contemporary perspectives, examining the emergence of new visual forms in response to modernity and reproduction, the work of practitioners who bridged calligraphic practice and the technical demands of typography, and contemporary revivals of calligraphic forms through type design, digital tools, and renewed engagement with craft.
Situated Between Voices and Times, the roundtable considers typography as a space of cultural translation, where inherited letterforms are adapted, standardized, reinterpreted, and carried into new visual futures.
David Berlow is an American typeface designer, tech innovator, and entrepreneur often recognized as a foundational figure in digital typography. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he transitioned with the font industry from physical letter-drawing to early desktop computing and modern web fonts. He is best known as the co-founder of The Font Bureau, a digital type foundry that shaped the visual identity of major global publications and technology companies.
Haytham Nawar is a practicing artist, designer, and scholar in the fields of art and design. Over the past two decades, he has built a professional and academic career while simultaneously fulfilling various roles. Dr. Nawar currently serves as the director of Diriyah Art Futures at the Ministry of Culture in Riyadh and is also a tenured faculty member at the American University in Cairo. He co-founded Cairotronica, the Cairo International Electronic and New Media Arts Festival. He earned his Ph.D. from the CAiiA Hub at the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University in the UK. His research interests include art and design history, Arab media arts, and pictographic communication systems, focusing specifically on the Arab world and Africa. Among his notable publications are Language of Tomorrow and A History of Arab Graphic Design.
Dr. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès is the Founding Director of the Khatt Foundation and Khatt Books publishers, in Amsterdam. She works as an independent design curator, researcher, writer, designer, and publisher. She holds degrees in graphic design and design history from Leiden University (PhD, 2017), Yale University (MFA, 1990), and Rhode Island School of Design (BFA, 1987). Dr Smitshuijzen AbiFarès specialises in Arabic script and typographic design research, and Arab design history. She is the author of the first seminal book entitled Arabic Typography, A Concise Sourcebook (2001, 2025), and several other books and essays on typography and graphic design from the SWANA region. She is editor in chief of Khatt Books’ Arabic Design Library series for which she wrote two books.
Laura Meseguer (Barcelona, 1968) is a type designer and typographer whose practice bridges commissioned work and self-initiated projects. She runs Laura Meseguer Studio, focused on custom typeface design for clients, and specializes in typography-driven design — from lettering for monograms and logotypes to custom typefaces and editorial design. In 1992, she co-founded the independent foundry Type-Ø-Tones, where she continues to publish and promote her typefaces. She later completed the prestigious Type and Media program at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague (2003–2004), consolidating her focus on type design. Her work has received wide international recognition. Her typefaces Rumba, Lalola, Qandus, and Ella have been honored by the Type Directors Club (TDC). Additional distinctions include Laus Awards, ISTD Certificates of Excellence, Hiiibrand Awards, and the ED-Awards. In 2018, she received the Premio Gràffica for her professional career, and in 2025 the project “Recipes for Connecting” received a special mention at the Premis Ciutat de Barcelona.
Alongside her design practice, Laura is deeply involved in education and the professional community. She teaches Typography in the Master’s Degree in Editorial Design at Elisava and co-directs Tipo-g, a type design school in Barcelona. She lectures and leads workshops internationally.
Sami L. De Giosa is currently assistant professor at University of Sharjah. He was also the head of the Islamic Museum atthe Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem center in Kuwait, a Research Fellow at SOAS Universityof London in the department of Cultures and Languages and a senior Barakat fellow atthe University of Oxford. His various interests include the art and architectural history of Mecca and Madinah,the arts of the Mamluks and museum studies in the Arab world and the wider Middle East
David Berlow 
Haytham Nawar 
Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès 
Laura Meseguer 
Sami De Giosa