Speaker Mamoun Sakkal

“Mamoun Sakkal is a founder and principal of Sakkal Design in Bothell, Washington, USA. In addition to art, he has degrees in architecture from Syria and the United States and a PhD in Islamic art history from the University of Washington. Sakkal has lectured on Islamic art and geometry, Arabic calligraphy, and typography at universities and conferences in the United States, Canada, England, Dubai, Kuwait, Syria, and Uzbekistan.

Providing graphic design and communication solutions to national and international corporations, Sakkal’s agency has focused on Arabic calligraphy and typography since the 1990s and received multiple awards for calligraphy, graphics, and type design, including those from ADC, TDC, Granshan, and IRCICA in Istanbul, Turkey. Sakkal’s work has been published in typography and calligraphy books and annuals, including Communication Arts, Hroof Arabiya, Letter Arts Review, LogoLounge, and Yearbook of Type. He designed the corporate Arabic typefaces for Burj Khalifa and Armani Hotel in Dubai. Other clients include Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Monotype.

Sakkal’s firm has served as the Arabic language expert for Microsoft for the past twenty years, and his Arabic typefaces are widely used as system fonts. He works with his daughter Aida Sakkal, who has been responsible for the programming of his typefaces since 2001. “