My Grafix Diary {about contemporary Egypt} is my -first- attempt to visualize my home country, Egypt, for the Bachelor Project. The idea, when I firstly started, was creating some graphic design solutions that would describe contemporary Egypt. I was thinking, that Egypt was in a deadly need of a good -better said professional- visual language, that every Egyptian could understand, identify with & appreciate. In the middle of the process, while doing my research & holding interviews with Egyptian designers from different generations, I slowly started realizing -a deeper truth- that this was simply not possible; not only for me, but actually for anybody. Egypt as a country includes different cultures & is too wide to express from one point of view, no matter howtolerant or open minded one is willing to be. In this country are the fanciest houses next to
the poorest areas; the most expensive cars drive next to the donkeys on the main roads; many people would speak more than 4 languages & many others wouldn’t know how to write down their names. And in order to have a correct visual image of Egypt one has to be all of those people all together. The Egyptians share some aspects in their lives, but are different & individual in almost everything else. Being aware of that, I knew, that I could visually present Egypt only from my perspective; & in doing so, encourage other designers to experience the same.

Firstly I collected much of the info in form of photographs about Egypt & its older designs for inspiration. 

Some design trials:

This idea reminded me so much of a book {Kashkoul El Rassam} done by the first Egyptian graphic designer, Mohy El Din El Labbad. His book explained, based on his personal experience, that every artist should have his own inspiration, that roots in his own life & memories. Labbad gave examples from his own childhood & adulthood to encourage individuality. Then I realized that my idea was pretty much the same; I don’t want to create some kind of a uniform design for all Egyptian designers to follow, nor do I want to present my designs & call them {The contemporary Art of Egypt}, because I think this is simply not possible. I realized that what I could do, is to present things that: grab my attention, I take for granted or that I think are characteristic for
Egypt, & present those in a frame that is inspired either from the culture or is totally contradictory. So whether Egyptian or non, one would find some elements that resemble or remind of Egypt.

The diary is divided into 8 different sets/chapters