The way we create and share meaning is changing as AI enters daily life. This calls for new kinds of visual communication—not fixed sets of symbols, but flexible systems that can grow and adapt.
This keynote explores how machines can help design visual languages that connect people across cultures. The aim isn’t one universal language for everyone, but tools that respect cultural differences while opening new ways to communicate.
The key point: a designer’s job is shifting from creating finished images to building systems that evolve and take on meaning through use. Meaning isn’t fixed in advance—it grows as people, technology, and cultures interact.
In short, communication becomes an open, evolving process—one that welcomes difference and helps us understand each other in a connected world.
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.
Haytham Nawar