PORTFOLIO 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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ABOUT ME Introduction Why Fashion?
ESSAYS Introduction Impressions Massacre Voyeur
BRANDING Not (So) Guilty Balqees Fathi Moon Slice
ILLUSTRATION Italy Through Ink A Pulp Fiction Boogie Ain't Got No, I Got Life Brown Skin Girl
PHOTOGRAPHY Orange Fields The Fruit Market Death of the Art Form A Neighborhood Away
ABOUT me First and foremost, welcome to my portfolio. My name is Mina Sayed, and I am an Egyptian, Dubaibased graphic and multimedia designer whose passion lies in the timeless shape of creative journalism, namely a publication. I believe that the experience of imagery and text through print by means of paper textures, layouts and typographic treatments create an even deeper conversation about the work being presented. I am constantly inspired by art, literature, fashion and film as they all serve as forms of expression that enrich our culture, ideologies, and define the age that they were created in. I graduated from the American University of Sharjah as a Multimedia Designer with a knowledge of telling stories through moving imagery. However, as I transitioned into the “real world”, I found a home for my obsession for typography in the shape of a brand designer, aiming to create strong visual identities that instantly tell the brand’s story.
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WHY FASHION? With the world of publications covering a myriad of subjects, what makes fashion so special to me? In the scheme of who, what, when, where and why, I have always been interested in the why. Fashion is a versatile point of expression. It can be the symbolic representation of a social stance, such as the black gowns and suits featured in the 2018 Golden Globe Awards that showed support for the Me Too Movement, or an environmental concern as shown on the cover of Vogue Italia in 2010. Fashion can be as personal, as the late Alexander McQueen's riveting collections that aimed to tell a story through texture, color and silhouette. It has the power to shape the identity of an era, a country, or an individual. To ultimately answer the question, "why fashion?", it is within its proximity to every individual on this planet that gives me an obligation to find meaning behind our daily endeavor, what we wear. Through a fashion publication I can explore this through typography, photography, writing and the collective story built with every issue.
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Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2001
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ES SA Essays is a film series researched, storyboarded, produced, styled, shot and edited by me. It explores the possibilities of an art analysis that goes beyond its traditional form, namely, the written word. It aims to establish a visual style, and a structural scheme, all while exploring different mediums. Each film focuses on an art piece: "Object to be Destroyed" by Man Ray, "Electric Chair" by Andy Warhol, and lastly, "Untitled Anthropometric" by Yves Klein. 05
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VOYEUR Man Ray's "Object to be Destroyed", which seems to only be a metronome with an eye attached, is actually the object that regulated Ray's brush strokes when painting. It was literally the heart of his paintings. One day he disagreed with the metronome and destroyed it with one quick blow. He later reintroduced it as a sculpture called "Object to be Destroyed".
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Themes Explored
AUDIENCE The metronome represented the psychological impact of obsessive and relentless observation.
DESTRUCTION Destroying the metronome, a symbol of constraint and observation, meant taking back control.
PULSE Man Ray set a metronome before painting because it regulated his brushstrokes, similar to our hearts regulating our breathing.
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MASSACRE "Electric Chair" is one print of the many prints that Warhol screen-printed with various bright colors. He wanted to illustrate the lack of effect an image has when seen multiple times. Here he shows us an empty electric chair in a chamber, a sad metaphor for death.
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Themes Explored
NOTHINGNESS The chair represents a reduction of life into nothingness. It is passive, inactive and melancholic.
REPETITION Warhol wanted to imitate the constant reiteration of tragedy in the media.
VANITAS The symbolic art that showcases the transience and futility of life, emphasizing the certainty of death.
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IMPRESSIONS Yves Klein's "Untitled Anthropometric" is a commemorative painting, honoring human existence. The minimalistic and exclusive use of the color blue is reinterpreted not as a color but as earths basic elements, the ocean and the sky.
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Themes Explored
COLOR The usage of one color aimed to evoke art beyond the art of painting. It emptied perceptions of line and form.
IMPRESSIONS Klein was inspired by Judo where powdered marks were left on the mat, leaving a trace of the match behind.
TORSOS Yves Klein believed that torsos were the anthropometric symbol that served as the pure canon of human proportion.
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BRAND Branding is a process of finding the right visual identity of a company. It is the consumer's first impression of the brand. Through typography, imagery and graphic elements, the brand personality is communicated. Branding for me is a process of research and experimentation. With every project, I strive to find the meaning behind the graphic and visual choices that I make. I always start by sketching logo ideas in my notebook using a number of different mediums, such as ink, markers or watercolors. From there I take my sketches and turn them into vectorized logos with an appropriate typeface and color palette. In this section, I share two brands with different personalities and purposes, a nostalgic brand and a personal one.
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NSG Not (So) Guilty is a nostalgic brand that aims to create conversation about tradition and the memories it brings back. Authenticity plays a vital role in the brand, from the ingredients to the photo shoots. They are confident with who they are, and unapologetically genuine. Art direction, creative direction, and photography by me. Production by Maryam Nassif. Lighting by Anouar Bouizgarne. Bukhash Brothers Brand.
Peach The color of comfort, honesty and joy. It can be used as an accent or background color.
Mint Green This color communicates to the consumer the feeling of being fresh, clean and light.
Pastel Orange This vibrant color is meant to communicate the joyful, enthusiastic, and fun energy of the brand.
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BALQEES FATHI A rebel at heart, Balqees Fathi is consistently pushing the boundaries of the music industry within the region. Her goal is to make everyone happy, and to convey the importance of strength, confidence and self-love through a powerful and emotive medium.
Feminine, fluid, adaptive
Strong, supportive, independent
Personal, special, human
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Bukhash Brothers BRAND.
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Light Neutral Color This color can be used for backgrounds and supporting elements. Pantone 7590 XGC HEX #d9ba99 CMYK 15% 26% 41% 0% RGB 217, 186, 153
Accent Colors These neutral shades pair well with a bold and complimentary color. Pantone 7499 XGC HEX #fffade CMYK 1% 1% 14% 0% RGB 255, 250, 22
Pantone 663 XGC HEX #f5f5f5 CMYK 3% 2% 2% 0% RGB 245, 245, 245
Dark Neutral Color This color will be used mainly for body text and dark backgrounds. Pantone Process Black C HEX #000000 CMYK 75% 68% 67% 90% RGB 0, 0, 0
Bold Main Color This color can be used for grabbing attention and highlighting important information. Pantone 7477 C HEX #214f57 CMYK 87% 55% 52% 33% RGB 33, 79, 87
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Balqees Fathi for Zahrat Al Khaleej
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MOON SLICE If you really think about it, is there a pizza place in the UAE that is THE pizza place to go to? Well, Moon Slice did, a lot, and there isn't. Every "pizza place" offers your basic tomato paste with cheese on dough without thinking about how pizza flavors can be innovative and sophisticated. Moon Slice is literally a slice of the moon. It entices your imagination to think of pizza toppings and ingredients that are unconventional but extremely yummy. Caesar salad inspired pizza? You had to be on the moon to think of that combination. Bukhash Brothers Brand. Photographs were taken by Bukhash Brothers Production.
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Bukhash Brothers BRAND.
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ILLUSTRATION
INK
PENCIL
COLOR
PROCREATE
PHOTOSHOP
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SKETCH
Illustration to me is more than just drawing. It is a style and attitude that depicts the world from the perspective of the artist. It is an opportunity to explore the fantastical and exaggerate the beautiful through colors, textures and form. The works shown include a visual diary of an educational trip to Italy, a rotoscoped 2D animation of an iconic film scene, a commemorative piece, and lastly a celebratory piece derived from a leading Pop Culture Queen, Beyonce. 56
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ITALY THROUGH INK The following are drawings taken on a month-long course through Italy, from Vasari's home in Arezzo to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. During this trip, I learned to use an entirely new instrument, namely a fountain pen. Its versatility in thicknesses and texture allowed me to make really fast sketches, such as the pediment with the equestrian scene, or more detailed drawings, such as "The Deposition" by Michelangelo.
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PULP FICTION BOOGIE Taken from Quentin Tarantino's famous, "Pulp Fiction", I drew the iconic character, Mia Wallace, as she boogies with Vincent Vega. This short rotoscope was drawn using Adobe Photoshop with twenty-four frames per second.
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NINA SIMONE After watching the Liz Garbus directed documentary, "What Happened, Nina Simone?", I've been even more infatuated by the singer. Her music has so much political and social significance, but above all it is so authentic to who she is and what she stood for.
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BROWN SKIN GIRL Beyonce's film and visual album, "Black is King" was a powerful stance on the term "Black". She showcases the rich history of the word by celebrating different African dances, hairstyles and fashion. This drawing was taken from a scene out of "Brown Skin Girl" where a group of women waltz, wearing lavish white gowns.
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PH Photography is one of the most intriguing, versatile and powerful mediums to have been invented, in my humble opinion. It is the precursor to film, it changed the coarse of painting, and it questioned our understanding of aesthetics. Photography is more than just the moment of capturing an image. It is a process that aims to build a story through color, composition and texture. After being the props manager and later the set designer of my high school play, I have always been interested in the making of an image, how the visual identity of a set communicates emotion or references history. However, the other facet of photography that I have taken up is capturing and creating a narrative of the world I surround myself by, whether that is a fruit market or my neighborhood.
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ORANGE FIELDS A woman lies embellished with crystals, surrounded by a field of half-eaten oranges. The fruits, lively with color, contrast the woman's expression and arrangement as she lies down, inanimate and expressionless. Art direction, creative direction, casting, styling, makeup, lighting, and photography by me.
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FRUIT MARKET Al Aweer Central Fruit and Vegetable Market is an open space filled with men dressed in blue, weighing watermelons, piling apples and bargaining lettuce prices. During a time of social distancing and hand sanitizers, I was interested to see how the very simple business of a fruit stand changed due to the pandemic. Photographed by me.
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DEATH OF THE ART FORM Death of the Art Form aims to portray corporate control on a long lasting convention, namely art. Has this form of expression been reduced to an aesthetic preference led by the algorithmic cage of likes and shares? Art direction, creative direction, casting, styling, makeup, lighting, and photography by me.
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NEIGHBORHOOD This is a photography series taken on film of my neighborhood. Al Barsha South is an area in Dubai at its earlier stages of development. I wanted to capture the remains of its sand patches, rusty doors, abandoned paint brushes, and whatever crosses my path as I walk the unfinished blocks of the district. Photographed by me using 35 mm film.
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THE END. (not really)
minasayed.com