We were recently commissioned to develop a new identity for a Riyadh-based company called Al-Sultan. Our idea was to combine Arabic typography with some of the images associated with the word ‘Sultan’.

The crown is an important part of a Sultan’s appearance. We started by looking at different types of crowns worn by Sultans throughout history and arrived at an abstract shape that represented said crowns, using that as our starting point.

We then took our calligraphic text and modified it in the shape of the crown, with the intention of providing a more subtle representation than that which would be achieved via a graphic.