The start-up culture across the Middle East is growing but not new. Young men and women across the region have long been successful at creating new products, starting new companies and inspiring an entrepreneurial and e-commerce scene that is ever-evolving.
We spoke to some of the local entrepreneurs who are using elements of Arab culture in their products, providing a slice of Arabian life not often found on store shelves through products that offer an intuitive, accurate and sometimes playful take on the region’s traditions.
The word “yislamoo” – a colloquial term for “thank you” in the Levant – was the perfect name for a start-up dedicated to creating greeting cards inspired by Arab culture and the variety of dialects in the region.
“I felt there was no such thing as Arabic greeting cards in the market and, more importantly, no cards that use our contemporary, everyday spoken language and nuances. Everything was formal, classical Arabic,” says founder Rasha Hamdan from Jordan, who moved to Dubai to expand her company’s market. “You can find fun phrases inspired by Arab culture on T-shirts but not in print.”
The designer and illustrator set out to create greeting cards featuring familiar Arabic phrases and ones that reflect the Arab sense of humour. She launched Yislamoo from her home in Amman in 2011, with a range of cards in Arabic but designed with a modern aesthetic.
The rhymes and flow of the language in the cards rely on traditional phrases and cultural references that make sense to Arabs.
“The cards reflect our culture, as well as the beautiful visuals and language and expressions we use as Arabs,” says Hamdan. “If you’re celebrating something, such as the birth of a child or a birthday or a marriage, you might as well do it in your own language.”
Having recently launched an online store in the UAE – where the price of a single greetings card starts at Dh25 – Hamdan has added quirky wall art, stationery and customisable gifts to her product list.
“There’s a marriage between East and West in every visual we create, whether it’s the hand- lettering or the pop art, and it appeals to everyone who lives here and wants a piece of Arabia in their homes,” she says.
La Come Di
Fashion brand La Come Di has added a fun, cultural spin to on-trend wardrobe items, including patches, appliqués and pins used to decorate all types of clothing and accessories, from denim jackets to canvas backpacks.
Founders Elisa Arienti, from Italy, and Feras Sobh, from Palestine, are Dubai residents who wanted to pay tribute to the place they now call home.
“We simply wanted to create something that would add to the city we live in, mixing culture and design into something tangible,” says Arienti.
Last month, they launched a new global e-commerce portal. As for their designs, think street-style-inspired products that incorporate pop-culture graphics and comic book-style illustrations – of locals sipping karak chai or eating Chips Oman, for example, on T-shirts and laptop cases. They are images, says Arienti, familiar and relevant to the region.
La Come Di also features playful icons such as pizza slices and palm trees in print and appliqué form on cotton and denim T-shirts, tunics and kimonos. A pack of fries is branded with a fictional company logo that reads “Habibi burger”, and a pack of matches features the words, “C’mon Habibi, light my shisha”. The tops cost about Dh200, while pins and patches cost Dh50.
“It’s playful, it’s fashionable, it’s on trend,” says Arienti.
The Little Bulbul
Two sisters found themselves frustrated by a lack of Arabic children’s art with which to decorate their children’s bedrooms – so they decided to create their own.
Hana Balla, who lives in Dubai and Sara Hashem, in Canada, found plenty of English-language art and posters for children, but little with Arabic lettering.
“Anything Arabic we found was boring or old fashioned and simply not attractive like the English prints,” says Hana. “My sister is a designer, so we thought, why not have her design the sort of thing we were looking for, then I could sell it here in the UAE?”
In November 2015, they launched their fun, vibrant and colourful prints featuring the Arabic alphabet, which are perfect for a Pinterest-worthy nursery.
“What people seem to like about our prints is not that they are in Arabic, but that they are designed with fun illustrations and trendy colours and look modern and attractive on the wall,” says Hana.
The sisters’ focus is solely on Arabic: teaching it and making it look fun and attractive for the little ones.
“We began with single-letter illustrations and an alphabet poster, then designed a birth announcement and milestones in Arabic,” says Hana. “This year we’re adding Arabic flash cards as well, which have the word written out in Arabic and its pronunciation in English.”
The pair have also created Islamic products – morning and night prayers illustrated as a print that can be framed and placed on a bedside table – and a Ramadan countdown for Eid.
The prints are available on Little Majlis and Etsy worldwide, with prices starting from Dh50.
“We love our language and we want our kids to love it as well, so why not provide nice decorations that can also educate?” says Hana.
Buzzkito
Buzzkito, a digital company focused on Arabic-video creation and production, was founded in Morocco and moved its headquarters recently to Dubai. Its videos, created by and for Arabs, focus on brands and issues relevant to them.
“We try to understand what makes people happy, what engages them, and we work with brands to help them create videos that help engage with their consumers,” says chief executive and founder Mehdi Benslim.
Buzzkito creates more than 20 videos a day and their content reaches 27 million people a month on an average.
“We work with psychologists who try to understand and then explain to us what makes Arab people happy,” says Benslim. “Based on that, we create content based on each region or country. We rely strongly on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
“There is a lack of original Arab content in the region so we are doing very well by taking into account the differences in language and culture between each country.”
Bilbareed
Three women – from Palestine, Oman and Saudi Arabia – wanted to celebrate Arab design and create a bilingual platform for people in the Middle East.
The result is Bilbareed, which allows users to customise invitations and cards or choose from a pool of beautiful and culturally sensitive designs by Arab artists.
“We’ve reached out to designers based all over the Arab world to allow them to showcase their work,” says Dana Farouki, cofounder of the business with Basma Albakree and Huda Al Lawati.
They say snail mail never became reliable enough across the Middle East.
“There is a broad audience in the Arab world who are in the beginning stages of embracing technology as a primary means of communication,” says Farouki. “Bilbareed gives them a fun way to communicate with their communities, but also have it rooted in our culture and celebrate the holidays that are specific to us as Arabs.”
Users simply log on, select a design from the multitude of tongue-in-cheek, quirky offerings or more classical and traditional Arabic options, customise them and then it is delivered by email or SMS. Bilbareed has more than 200 cards and works with 15 Arab designers
“It’s our way of celebrating the talent of the region,” says Farouki.
Ayat Mekki is from Sudan and has lived her entire life in the UAE, but has always had an obsession with Russian nesting dolls known as matryoshkas.
“I used to collect these traditional dolls,” says Mekki. “Four years ago, I thought, why not remake this typically Russian doll into different nationalities?”
Mekki and her husband Muntasir Alamin created Matryoshka Land, which features nesting dolls representing 20 countries, including the UAE and Oman. They are designed by Mekki and handmade in St Petersburg
Each of the wooden dolls has a unique name and distinct features to indicate its ethnicity. The UAE doll, called Dana, is dressed in a black abaya with an embellished gold burqa. Each country’s dress is researched by Mekki at the start of the design stage.
“I work on everything from make-up to costumes to accessories to the shape and colour of the eyes, the texture of the hair, all these little details,” she says. The dolls sell for Dh375.
artslife@thenational.ae