Not only a great graphic designer, Essam Abu Awad is the teacher that inspires any student to do better. Whenever you hear his passion and his talks about design, colours, theories, etc. you get deeply involved with his world, which thrives with brilliant knowledge and sound experience. A tutor and a friend I was lucky to meet in my life, since I had the honour and pleasure to attend his classes during my bachelor. This is just a glimpse of his biography and works, Essam keeps his background intro brief as he does not intend to get anyone sleepy!
Essam Abu Awad was born in Amman in 1958. He finished his secondary education in 1977. At the tender age of four he showed an interest in drawing and, by the age of 11, he started exhibiting his works in the annual exhibition held by his school. At that time his work had alreaby been recognized as promising by tutors and many professional artists around him.
In 1977 he enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He was granted a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 and a Master of Arts degree in 1985, both in the discipline of Graphic Design. During his studies at Lahore, Essam was able to build a hefty portfolio of high quality work which assured him professional practice as a freelance designer, while studying in Lahore and Karachi until 1986.In 1988, after military service, Essam joined one of the biggest commercial companies in Jordan (SHARRAWI) as brand and corporate designer. He was responsible for creating new brands for imported products such as fashion garments, food, textiles and other merchandise. He designed successful brands and instantly recognizable packaging for many prestigious companies operating in the Arab Gulf region, such as AL-SHAYAKAH, DAFA or ALASEEL among others.
In 1992 Essam started his own studio – MIDAS – in Amman, Jordan. The studio performed well and produced many highly recognized designs for both Jordanian and other Middle Eastern clients from Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Essam’s studio mirrors his solid background as an artist, as well as his ability to meet his customers’ requirements with professionalism and friendly manners. Chinese word-of-mouth have quickly assured him many succesful cooperations.
Essam believes that high quality and focused design can trasform an instant into a lasting impression on customers, while involving them after the first glance thus creating a strong brand identity. To meet this challenge, Essam offers his own clients a range of customized designs which include the product identity, branding and marketing. Everything aims to attract interest and give his clients the edge over their competitors. He has worked for different kinds of clients including industrial and commercial firms, banks, food manufacturers, computer and IT business companies, chemical industries, and construction firms. Among the most prestigious commercial customers: the Zalloum Group, Jordan Investment Bank, Creative Concrete Concepts, PCstores, Ayla, RamPHARMA, Hamoudeh (Al-Emlaq) and EuroGulf Trading.
Essam’s design process always starts with a pencil and a piece of paper. He begins by mind mapping, to get keywords and imagery flowing through his mind, and then moves on to roughly sketched concepts and logotypes. Once he discovers that he has a solid direction to move on, he digitizes his ideas.
Essam is proud of his work and always enthusiast of graphic design. Though he thinks his work is pretty good, he does not consider it to be flawless. A designer can undertake a job with the goal of doing his best possible, or he can undertake a job for the purely monetary reward. Essam has always tried to approach his business with the goal of doing the best. At the beginning of a project, he asks himself, what is needed for this work and how can it be realized at its best? How is this design going to attract one’s attention? He always takes into consideration the customers’ feedback – as the design is for them, not for the designer himself. When occasionally receiving questionable feedback about his design, perhaps unfavourable, he has to realize it is not always possible to do the best job. That was when he knew that he would just have to get the job done and get paid, since it is not always possible to please every customer, or agree with what every customer wants, however hard you work to achieve harmony.
In 1999, Essam left the commercial market and joined the academic field to teach at the Faculty of Art and Design of Applied Science University, Amman. Essam says that teaching is his true vocation and he’s completely devoted to it. He thinks that the faculty is an ideal environment to modernize Graphic Design and teaching itself. (His good reputation as a professional designer granted him the ability to transfer his concepts to the faculty, by developing his thoughts on design issues and sharing his insight with students and colleagues.) He attempted to arrange in logical order certain important principles governing the methods of teaching Graphic Design. His teaching combined Bauhaus analysis, Gestalt theory and other influential texts including Paul Rand, Tschichold and constructivist manifestoes. He always focuses on the wider practice and role of Graphic Design.
Essam remains active in both the academic and professional fields of design. He regularly participates in academic conferences discussing important issues in Graphic Design, its relation to the arts and technology and the challenges of teaching Graphic Design to students.
His other achievements include:
- Preparation of “An Introduction to Textile and Fashion Design” Course and Textile Printing Techniques’ for Jerusalem Open University, in 1991.
- Participating in Graphic Design conferences in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Copenhagen, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
- Participating in Graphic Design seminars and forums held both in Amman and abroad, which focus on exchanging experiences and views on different issues concerning the process and techniques related to Graphic Design.
- Editing in process: An academic textbook tackling the issue of Graphic Design in a new way. It helps undergraduate Graphic Design students by teaching them how to define a problem, explore attributes of a problem, create awareness, and improves their ability to attend to different angles in order to discover new means and methods in design.
In 2006 Essam left the Applied Science University on a scholarship to gain his PHD in Graphic Design. His research demonstrates that regulation alone is insufficient to create improved commercial signage in an urban environment. This has been found in Jordan, where the introduction of regulation on the type and placement of urban signage produced only partial improvement in the urban environment. This study argues that such regulation must be supported by both educators in sign design and by properly trained, commercially practicing designers.
Examination of current design teaching shows that there is a lack of specialized and sufficient training in the practice of sign design within curricula. This leads to designers entering the market place with little understanding of the skills and techniques central to the design of effective and aesthetically pleasing signage. By developing designated and specialized teaching in sign design, sign designers would be better equipped to design and situate signage appropriately within the urban environment. Such teaching may be offered as part of existing Graphic Design courses, or as separate training. It is anticipated that these competencies will contribute to the development of improvements within the sign industry, as designers become better equipped for the task of sign design. It is also hoped that the involvement of stakeholders in both education and industry will provide support for the regulations introduced by organizations such as Amman Municipality to improve the urban environment.
Source:http://www.ymag.it/2010/01/14/a-talk-with-graphic-designer-academic-and-blogger-essam-abu-awad/
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