Khatt Chronicles in Conversation with Wael Morcos

Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès interviews American-Lebanese designer Wael Morcos. They start by talking about his educational journey in graphic design from Notre Dame University (NDU) in Lebanon to Rhode Island School fo Design (RISD) in the USA. They discuss the people and projects that have had an influence on his development as a graphic and type designer, leading to his founding of Studio Morcos Key (@morcoskey) with his partner Jon Key in Brooklyn, New York. The conversation revolves around what it means to design in the diaspora versus when living in the culture for which one is designing, and what the pros and cons are for working bilingually and biculturally. They unpack Morcos' work as a type designer and his various collaborations with well-known Arab and American type designers, and go on to discuss his Arabic lettering workshops and various prestigious branding, exhibition and publication design projects for clients like the 2nd Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (2025) (@islamicartsbiennale), to his ongoing collaboration with the US-based Arab cultural foundation and magazine Mizna (@mizna_arabart), to his Arabic logotype for the campaign of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani (@nycmayor @zohrankmamdani). Among his many hats as a designer, Morcos maintains a commitment to Arab culture placing the Arabic script at the heart of his projects wherever and wherever possible. He also makes time to engage in pro-bono activist projects to support social and humanitarian causes, like fundraising for victims after the Beirut port explosion of 2020 with a design for a wool blanket. They discuss the growing design ecology in the Arab region and how it is an essential currency for the preservation and reinterpretation of cultural knowledge. They conclude with Morcos' plea for the need to encourage and advocate for more critical writing and debates on design amongst practicing designers from the region.