GD Capstone 09

Title: My Dhadh
Designer: Zainab Ali Moosa
200426577
Course: ART 499 Graphic Design Capstone
Instructor: Yunsun Chung-Shin

Background

1.    09 Capstone Brief

2.    General Sustainable Design Research

3.    Emotional Statement

Our Arabic language is very important to us. It’s the language of our holy book, the Quraan and it’s the foundation of our identity. It has been a literary language for over 1500 years . Although over 220 million people speck Arabic over the world, Arabic language dies everyday and people do not give the right of this beautiful language . They don’t even speak it in their life and always use alternative languages through their transactions instead of using original and official language. Arabic is no longer given the respect it deserves. Of the estimated seven thousands languages spoken in the world today, only a fraction is expected to survive into the next century. This should awake us to make a step further and try to save our language from being lost. We should protect our language and make a change in our community. Put your hand in my hand and let’s work together for a sustainable and beautiful life.

4.    Inspirations

•    The holy Quraan is my first inspiration, since Arabic language is the language of our holy book, Quraan.

•    Arabic language is our mother language.

•    “To my knowledge, there is no nation that allows an invasion of foreign languages in government institutions the way we did in the UAE”. Dr. Ebtisam Alkibi.

•    Language is a central feature of human identity and both of them are dynamic and depending upon time and place.

•    Native language revitalization campaign: The mission statement of the “speak English” campaign is to encourage people to promote and support the sustainment of the American heritage and American culture.

•    No nation allows an invasion of foreign language in government institutions the way we did in UAE.

•    Of the estimated seven thousands language spoken in the world, only a fraction is expected to survive into the next century.

Capstone Brief

Our Arabic language is very important to us. It’s the language of our holy book, the Quraan and it’s the foundation of our identity. Although more than 350 million people speck Arabic around the world, Arabic language dies everyday and people do not give the right of this beautiful language . Arabic is no longer given the respect it deserves. Arabic language is our mother language and we should protect it whatever it coast. So we should work together to fight this problem and find a suitable solution and save our language from being obsolete. My project is about Arabic language and how it’s being misused nowadays. Sine it’s the language of our holy Quraan and it’s our mother language we should protect it from being loss. My Dhadh is a campaign to empower the use of Arabic language, which will raise awareness and educate people about the importance of Arabic language and how we should do something to solve this problem. First people should believe that we could make a change and make a turning point in our life. People already have enough awareness about this issue. So the next step should be to start the action. The main aim of my campaign is to let people participate and act with the campaign. Then they should start to use their mother language in their life instead of alternative languages. As it’s common nowadays that people used to greet each other in English and their forgot totally to use their mother language. So they end up greeting each other by using English words such as: hi, bye, hello…etc. Why we used English words to greet while we can use our beautiful language.  I came up with this phrase “Express in Arabic” which I also used it for my project tagline and it’s simply reflect what I want from people to do to limit the use of alternative words and of course to greet in Arabic.

Research

1.    Project Specific Research: Problems

2.    Case Study Projects: (Solutions)

Many campaigns launched to protect and save our beautiful language from being lost. Of course if the subject is about Arabic language, the campaigns will be in Arabic. I searched the Internet for them and I was interested by two of them:

1)    “Together to save our Arabic Language” campaign. An Egyptian guy managed this campaign and it was launched in February 2009. The main goal was to limit the use of English words in our life. Since we are using some of English words to designate some of the things in our daily life. Although the campaign was in the Internet, many people interacted and participated with the campaign .

2)    “My Language is my Identity” campaign. It was a huge campaign launched in July 2008. An Egyptian guy also managed this campaign. It’s aimed to revive our language and protect it. Many writers and intellectuals participated in this campaign .

3)    “Khede Kasra” Arabic typography campaign. It was a campaign to promote women. The idea was simple and creative it was all about the typographic positioning of the accent (vocalization mark) in a word! We use the accent in the Arabic to address them to a man or a woman. So if the accent line was above the word it’s become addressed to the males. And if the accent was placed below the word its become addressed to the females. The accent that placed below the word called kasra .

3.    Designers

Majid Abbasi

Born in May 6, 1965 in Tehran, where he still lives today, Abbasi graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran in 1989 in visual communication. It was in this same year, having already enjoyed numerous freelance design commissions, that Abbasi set up his prestigious studio, Did Graphics Inc., with partner Firouz Shafei. Also a lecturer at the University of Tehran, following Morteza Momayez’ invitation to join the university’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Abbasi has been a member of the board (2003-2006) and treasurer of the Iranian Graphic Designers Society (IGDS) and web assistant of graphiciran.com, the IGDS’s official website. A more recent venture has seen the launch of Neshan, the Iranian graphic design magazine for which Abbasi sits on the editorial board, while he is also a founder of The 5th Color, a collective formed by what he describes as “the new generation of Iranian graphic designers”.
Abbasi’s work has been published in numerous international magazines and books. In addition to this, since 1999, Abbasi has participated in many national and international exhibitions. His works are presented in museums, collections and galleries around the world.

Mehdi Saeedi

Mehdi Saeedi was born in Tehran, Iran. He graduate from art school ” Maleke ashtar ” at course of Graphic and graduate art & design in the Cambridge University. He Established self graphic studio in1999.

4.    Visual Communication Styles

5.    Survey (The survey was send to 15 people)

1. Do you know that we are losing our identity by wasting our Arabic language when we speak English?
80% said yes
20% said no

2. Do you know that a lot of signage on the street includes Arabic translation mistakes?
93.33% said yes
6.67% said no

3. Are you using Arabic language as your official language?
64.29% said yes
21.43% said no
14.29% said maybe

4. Do you think this problem can be solved?
100% said yes

5. Do you think I will make any change in the future and solve this problem?
85.71% said yes
14.29% said no

6. Do you think my project will attract people and grape their attention?
93.33% said yes
6.67% said no

7. Did students have enough education about the importance of our language?
6.67% said yes
93.33% said no

9. Do you know that more than 350 million people speak Arabic language?
26.67% said yes
73.33% said no

10. Do you use another language instead of Arabic language in your transactions for example in the internet world, sms, filling applications, ..etc?
93.33% said yes
6.67% said no

Through my survey I figured out that a lot of people really don’t use Arabic as their first language although it’s their mother language. People in UAE always like to boast and show for other that they know how to speak and write in English without knowing that they are destroying our beautiful language. Using another language instead of Arabic language in different transactions reached 93% and it’s a huge percent that we should worry about it.

I want through my campaign to limit the number of people who speak English. Firstly I want them to understand the important of this issue. Then I want them to act and participate with my campaign.

Art direction

1.    Capstone (Big Idea)

One big thing relates to this issue is that people using English words for greetings. Arab people specially in UAE don’t use their language to greet each other. They usually used English words for greetings such as hello, bye, hi…etc. instead of “asslam alaikom”, “ma’a alslama” and “marhaba”. We can exchange our feeling by using our beautiful language. My idea revolves around using Arabic as your first language. I was thinking of how people can exchange their feeling by using their mother language. So I came up with this phrase “Abbr bl Araby” which means, “Express in Arabic”. Then you can freely express and exchange your feeling with others without less respecting and disregarding your language.

2.    Branding

Project name: (My Dhadh) I came up with this name based on the research I did and the first reason is that our Arabic language have different names, one of them is lughat aldhadh which means the language of dhadh. Why I chose dhadh because there is no other language that I can pronounce this letter on it.  I add the noun (my), (to show how much we love our language and it’s also the foundation of our identity), to the word dhadh so it’s became My Dhadh.

 

Logo: I designed my logo like a shape of a heart to show that our language is in our heart and we love our Arabic language. At the same time it’s the letter dhadh in Arabic. As we want to revive our Arabic language I was trying to show that also im my logo.  

Tag-line: Express in Arabic (Abbr bl Araby) I came up with this phrase after many decisions and it was on my mind but I couldn’t figure it out. After brainstorming and little help from someone it became clear on my mind and I decide to go with it. Why I choose express in Arabic because nowadays people use to greet each other in English instead of using their mother language. They greet by saying hello, hi, bye, sorry, thanks…etc. instead of using Arabic words such as alsalam alaikom, marhaba, ma’a alsalamah…etc. so I was thinking that people have enough awareness about this issue so why not coming up with something different and start the action.

3.    Style (look and feel)

4.    Typography

I choose Times New Roman PS for both Arabic and English because it’s clear, strong and easy to read.

5.    Color

I choose orange for the logo because it’s a powerful color and black for the text.   

Orange    Black

C: 0%          C: 0%
M: 50%        M: 0%
Y: 100%       Y: 0%
K: 0%           K: 100%

Campaign Applications

1.    Posters

•    Art direction

In my three posters series I was trying to show one side of the issue which is that there are many street signs translated wrong (first poster) and also I tried to show how people nowadays greet each other using alternative words instead of their mother language (third poster). Moreover I took a shoot of the case of Arabic language and how it been treated nowadays which I portrayed it in the (second poster).

Project brief:

My Dhadh is a campaign to empower the use of Arabic language,
which will raise awareness and educate people about the importance
of Arabic language. Since it’s the language of our holy Quraan and
it’s our mother language, we should protect it from being obsolete.

Change your way of greeting, and start using our precious language

Poster 1 Text: Do you know that many street signs translated wrong?

Poster 2 Text: Save Arabic language from being obsolete!

Poster 3 text: Greet in Arabic & enjoy greetings*
•    Design Development
•    Final 3 posters

2.    Media: Promotional Campaign Advertisement

•    Story

Hi, Hello, Bye, Thanks, Sorry…
How many times in a day you hear one of those words?
People in UAE and especially Zayed university students used English words to greet each other every day. I can say it’s become a daily habit in our life. Why we used English words to express our feelings while we can use our beautiful language? Why we are making our language obsolete? How we are treating the language of the holy Quraan like this? We should give our mother language the respect it deserves. We should change our habit and change our way of greeting. Let’s revive our Arabic language; let’s revive our Arabic greetings. So let’s work together and express in Arabic (Abbr bl Araby).

•    Art direction

As I said before I’m focusing on greeting in Arabic. In the movie I want to show at the bagging how we are losing our language. Then I will show different ways of greeting in English. For example, when people talk in mobile the first word they say is hello instead of Alsalam Alaikom. So I will show this issue in different scenes. Then I will explain about my campaign. Finally I will add the credits.
•    Design Development
•    Final Screen Shots 3-6 Images

3.    Others

4.    Campaign Event

What: Arabic Language is being misused nowadays and many people don’t care about this problem.

Why: It’s the language of our holy book, Quraan and it’s our mother language and we should save it and protect it.

How: I was thinking about doing something different and encourage people to use their mother language. I want students to act and participate with my campaign. Since my key massage is “reviving Arabic Greeting” I will make a huge plain wall and give the student freedom to greet each other as they like but in classical Arabic language.

Who: Students in Zayed University

When: In May 2009.

Where: Zayed University