View from Within
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Scope
/ BRANDS
Brand Strategy, Visual Identity Systems, Typography, Messaging Frameworks, and Print & Packaging.
/ BOOKS
Book & Monograph Design, and Technical Print Production.
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Client
Afaf Zurayk, Artwork and poems
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Collaborators
Editing: Clare Leader
Photography: Noel Nasr
Printing: 53dots
For View from Within, we collaborated once again with artist and poet Afaf Zurayk to create a book that is designed as an exploration of process and thought, unfolding organically in space.
Following Afaf’s established house style, the design of the publication hinges on a delicate balance between the deeply personal and the structural. Her handwritten poems and prose serve as the book’s emotional anchor, set in stark, beautiful contrast against strong sans-serif typography.
The rhythm of the book is highly intentional. It is structured thematically, with each new sequence introduced by a synthesis of afaf’s handwritten poetry, prose, and statements. Once the thematic stage is set, the pages open up to let her artwork breathe.
As gallerist Saleh Barakat eloquently notes in the book, View from Within serves as a sanctuary from the noise of the modern world:
"I invite the reader to share in Afaf Zurayk's extraordinary quest for inner truth by reading about 'what cannot be written but through hints and signs' and looking intensely at 'what cannot be seen but through the eyes of the soul.' At the height of technological innovations and excessive consumption, I believe it is only poetry, art and beauty that can save our shared humanity."
Ultimately, the essence of this publication, and of Afaf herself, is best captured in her own words:
“ As a visual artist writing poetry, I sensed colors becoming words and lines becoming rhythms as each poem presented itself. I was able to reach tones when word, color, line, and rhythm became one and a poem was formed.
I listened for the arrival of the next poem with great anticipation and openness and felt it emerging as a well-crafted insight. My world, beyond art, is a process. Not a place, not a space, not a community. It is a way. It is a thought unfolding in space. I am that thought unfolding in space.”
